Farm Survey to Help Set Policy, Prices

Interviewers will begin contacting 26,000 farmers across the nation Feb. 13 for an Agriculture Department survey used to help support prices and making farm policy decisions, the government said Monday.

The “farm costs and returns” survey will end March 31. During the survey, farmers and ranchers will be asked to cooperate by providing information on production costs, debts, assets, earnings, production practices and other characteristics.

Information from the survey is used to update the cost of production estimates that serve as benchmarks in setting support prices. The data also are used to measure farm income and to assess changes in the financial health of agriculture from year to year.

This year’s survey will be especially important in answering questions about the effect of last year’s drought and providing reliable information to Congress and the Bush Administration for writing the 1990 farm bill, said Charles Caudill, administrator of the National Agricultural Statistics Service.