National Agricultural Statistics Service – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to suspend a currently approved information collection, the 2012 Census of Agriculture Content Testing.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Agricultural Labor Survey. Revision to burden hours may be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Mink Survey. Revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population and/or questionnaire length. The target population will be pulled from positive historical data, trade magazines, or grower's association's lists. The questionnaire that NASS is planning to use is the same as what was used in previous years. Any changes to the questionnaire would result from requests by industry data users.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection for the Floriculture Survey. Revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and the Office of the Chief Economist are currently accepting stakeholder input on the public release time and procedures of several major USDA statistical reports.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Egg, Chicken, and Turkey Surveys. A revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Agricultural Resources Management Survey and Chemical Use Surveys. A revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

This notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to reduce the currently approved information collections for rice and potato stocks that are currently approved under OMB 0535-0007. Under the current OMB approval the Potato Stocks Survey is conducted on a monthly basis from December through June of each year. Under this reduction NASS plans to discontinue the collecting and publishing of potato stock data for the months of January, March and May. In the four remaining months (December, February, April and June) there will be no changes to the surveys or the publications. The Rice Stocks Survey is currently conducted in January, March, June, August, September, and October (only California for October). Under this reduction, NASS plans to discontinue the collection of data in September, along with the related publication.

This notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to suspend the Distillers Co- Products survey currently approved under docket 0535-0247.

This notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to reduce the currently approved information collections for chemical use surveys approved under OMB 0535-0218. The chemical use surveys included in this docket are: Agricultural Resource Management Survey Phase II (ARMS II), Vegetable Chemical Use Survey, Fruit Chemical Use Survey, and Post Harvest Chemical Use Survey. The Post Harvest survey was suspended under a previous notice. The ARMS II Chemical Use Survey is normally conducted every year and it consists of two versions; Production Practices and Costs Report (PPCR), and the Production Practices Report (PPR). The PPR component is conducted with NASS-only funding to gather field crop chemical use data. The PPCR is co-funded by a cooperative agreement with the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS). The PPCR component efficiently collects costs associated with the various production practices to complete the cost of production estimates for ARMS targeted crop commodities. The ARMS Phase II-PPCR efficiently collects detailed cropping practice and cost data by focusing on field-level and expanding to whole farm, thus greatly reducing respondent burden while maintaining accuracy of reported data. For the 2011 crop year, NASS is making no changes to the Fruit Chemical Use survey and Field Crops Chemical Use survey. Barley and sorghum are the targeted crops for Field Crops Chemical Use survey. Please note that wheat and soybeans were originally in the 2011 crop year but were moved to 2012 crop year due to current budget cuts.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Field Crops Objective Yield Surveys. Revision to burden hours may be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Agricultural Resources Management Survey and Chemical Use Surveys. Revision to burden hours may be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

This notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to suspend one currently approved information collection, (July Sheep and Goat Survey), and to indefinitely postpone the renewal of two periodic data collections (Census of Aquaculture and the Tenure, Ownership and Transition of Agricultural Land (TOTAL) survey formerly known as the Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership Survey (AELOS)) and their associated publications due to budgetary cutbacks.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intent of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Livestock Slaughter Survey. Revision to burden hours may be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to seek reinstatement of an information collection, the 2012 Census of Agriculture.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Organic Production Survey. Revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request a reinstatement, with changes, to a previously approved information collection, the Distiller's Grains Survey. Revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population (expanding from 12 States to 48 States), sampling design, and/or questionnaire length. The title of the information collection has been changed to Distiller's By-products Survey, to encompass both grain and non-grain commodities.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Equine Survey. Revision to burden hours may be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Aquaculture Surveys. Revision to burden hours may be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is currently conducting the 2009 On-farm Renewable Energy Production (OREP) survey as a follow-on to the 2007 Census of Agriculture. Respondents who answered that they generated energy or electricity in 2007 are eligible for the follow-on survey to determine types of selected energy produced and associated information. NASS is currently accepting stakeholder feedback on future energy related topics and questionnaire content for development of an annual agricultural energy survey.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Nursery and Floriculture Chemical Use Survey. Revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length. We will also be discontinuing the Nursery and Christmas Tree Production Survey for this approval cycle. NASS will be able to use production data from the Census of Horticulture (0535-0236) to calculate weights and expansions for the chemical use data.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Fruits, Nuts, and Specialty Crops Surveys. Revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sample design, minor changes in questionnaire design and an anticipated increase in response rates.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Cold Storage Survey. Revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, expected increases in response rates, and modes of data collection. The questionnaires have had some minor modifications to accommodate changes in the products stored by the industry, and to make the questionnaires easier to complete. The entire target population for cold storage operators will be contacted for this data on a monthly basis. Fruit storage operations are contacted on a seasonal basis. The capacity survey is conduced once every other year. These surveys are voluntary, except for operations that store certain manufactured dairy products that are required by Public Law No. 106-532 and 107-171 to respond.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to seek reinstatement of an information collection, the Census of Horticultural Specialties.