Agricultural Commodity Survey, Year Ending March 1999
Contents
B. User Requirements, Survey Objectives, and Budget
B1 Purpose of survey
Why do you need to conduct a survey? (B1)
Note. Refers to the underlying information requirements that the survey is intended to address. For example, what problems the agency is trying to solve? What decisions need to be made? What specific policies or actions are being determined or assessed? Should detail who requires the information.
Primary producers, industry organisations and suppliers, and other agricultural service and support industries use agricultural statistics for planning and decision making. The Federal and State Governments make extensive use of agricultural statistics for planning, budgets advisory services and for policies related to marketing agricultural commodities.
The prime objective of the Agricultural Commodity Survey (ACS) is to act as a source of basic agricultural statistics about a wide variety of commodities.
The ACS is designed primarily to collect data about commodities (including area and production for crops, number of livestock and area irrigated). Data are also available on the number of producers for each commodity, and on the counts of producers by ANZSIC class.
The ACS is also the major source of commodity data input into the calculation of Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced (VACP). VACP is a major output from the survey which is in turn used as an input to the Australian National Accounts.
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B2 Objectives
How will the survey meet this need? That is, what are the objectives of the survey in terms of content and constraints? (B2)
Note. "Content" refers to the topics the survey will cover. If applicable, "constraints" may include: fixed costs, fixed sample size, fixed accuracy (eg target RSEs), etc.
The ACS collects area and production data for a wide range of agricultural commodities. This commodity data is used to help produce data on the Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced (VACP). Estimates are also produced about the number of farmers or farm businesses producing different commodities.
Major Area of holding
commodity Pastures
categories: Crops
Vegetables
Fruit
Vineyards
Livestock
The 1998/1999 ACS also includes questions on environmental and Information Technology issues.
A number of supplementary collections are also run in conjunction with the ACS. They collect production data which is not available at the time of dispatch for the ACS as well as more detailed information concerning specific commodities:
Survey Reason
Beekeeping detail about operations
Cotton more detail about operations
Hops and Tobacco more detail about operations
Potatoes more detail about operations
Summer-growing
Crops detail about production after the ACS form was returned.
Reasons for conducting supplementary surveys can include:
1 - The crops in question are harvested within the current growing season, but after the fixed April 1st - March 31st ACS reference period. Summer-growing Crops and Potatoes are examples of this type of supplementary.
2 - The commodities in question are grown in a few relatively specific areas, or are grown by relatively specialised respondents. Hops and Tobacco, Beekeeping, and Cotton are examples. By surveying these particular respondents via a supplementary survey, ACS form content and respondent burden is reduced.
Design Constraints for major data items:
RSEs 2% for Australian level
5% for State level
10% for regional level
Minimum stratum sample size: 15 for size 1; 10 for others
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B3 Timetable
What is the timetable for the survey? (B3)
Note. Should include: testing, the date data collection commences, the date data collection finishes, and when results will be available.
Main ACS Survey
Question Testing November 1998
Form Development December 1998
Frame Creation February 1999
Sample Selection February 1999
Enumeration Period April to November 1999
Input Processing April to December 1999
First Estimates August 1999
Output/Tabulation Period December 1999 to March 2000
Release Date May 2000
Supplementary Forms
Dispatch July 1999
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