Understanding American Agriculture Challenges for the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (2008) / Chapter Skim
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8 Dissemination
8 Dissemination
Pages 150-161
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From page 150... ...
This chapter outlines the steps the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)
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From page 151... ...
Other examples abound. ARMS data were used to provide a wide variety of information types: • Distribution of government payments by farm size • Farm household income by farm typology • Impacts of energy price increases on farm businesses • Impacts of seed price increases • Characteristics of U.S.
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From page 152... ...
Comparisons between financial and tax variables reported on farmers' tax returns and the ARMS data highlight differences between accounting for tax purposes and the underlying economic realities. ARMS Web Tool ERS advertises that any user can get customized data summaries provided by the publicly available online data tool at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/ ARMS/.
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From page 153... ...
Within each topic area users can create tailored reports from the survey data. Farm structure and finance reports contain information on the structure and financial status and performance of U.S.
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From page 154... ...
ERS policy is that special tabulations, once prepared, are available to the public, and the agency reserves the right to disseminate the results of special tabulations on the agency website or in agency publications. NASS has a similar program (National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2007d)
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From page 155... ...
In addition, all reports, publications, and releases based on ARMS data must pass strict nondisclosure reviews. Entities and individuals outside USDA with access to confidential survey data are subject to the same federal statutes that apply to USDA and its employees.
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At the panel's session for ARMS data users at the 2006 meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) , the group consisted mainly of academic researchers but also included some private-sector users.
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Recommendation 8.2: USDA should consider extending the availability of ARMS microdata through the Census Bureau research data centers to increase access opportunities for using additional data sets and enabling researchers to match ARMS files with other data sets. TRAINING FOR DATA USERS ERS provides data users with information, documentation, and training through the Internet and a help desk operation.
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From page 158... ...
A recent cooperative agreement between ERS and the National Opinion Research Center seeks to develop training guidelines for users on data security and on ways to use ARMS. ERS also organized a preconference workshop as part of the 2006 AAEA annual meeting entitled "The State-of-the Art in the Analysis of Survey Data with Complex Sample Designs." The objective of the workshop was to illuminate the underlying statistical issues in analyzing data with complex sample designs.
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From page 159... ...
Since the feedback options available through the briefing room go directly to ERS staff, they do not allow users to actively discuss issues with one another. At the panel's data user session at the AAEA's 2006 annual meeting, users and potential users of ARMS data expressed interest in developing a process to facilitate communication within the user community as well as an ongoing feedback process to NASS and ERS.
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0 UnDeRStAnDing AMeRiCAn AgRiCUltURe For these variables, there is a high level of consistency in the questions included in the survey every year, but the codes change and sometimes change back. NASS and ERS should develop a variable naming convention that does not permit code changes unless underlying concepts change.
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From page 161... ...
DiSSeMinAtiOn service to its users by revisiting the definition and naming of summary statistics from previous years to make them consistent with the names used in the most recent years. Only in this manner can a consistent time series for the summary series be ensured.
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