Data Collection

The Farm Costs and Returns Survey is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) main source of detailed information on farmers' incomes and expenses. Reliable survey results grounded in proper measurement of farm conditions and sound methodology are essential in gauging the health of the farm sector and in setting government price supports. In addition, the data should be easily accessible to groups such as land grant universities if they are to do the most good. This report reviews (1) the survey's scope and design as they affect the quality and reliability of the data generated, (2) USDA's procedures for granting access to unpublished data, and (3) the agency's communication with users of the survey data.

GAO found that: (1) USDA methods for conducting FCRS may limit the quality and reliability of data for estimating farmers' expenditures and incomes; (2) the budget for producing and administering FCRS was $6.24 million; (3) FCRS response rates are overstated by 6 percent because USDA includes individuals who do not qualify as farmers; (4) failure to determine whether nonrespondents differ from respondents possibly generates biased results; (5) the policy of imputing answers to unanswered questions may lead to inaccurate data; (6) the USDA definition of farms results in an inefficient use of resources; (7) the USDA policy on access to unpublished data causes confusion among data users; and (8) USDA communication with land grant university researchers and other users needs improvement.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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