The New England NASS Field Office held a successful and productive workshop in Manchester, New Hampshire on May 11-13, 2010 to prepare for the 2010 June Area Survey. States participating in the workshop included Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. More than 30 NASDA supervisors and enumerators attended the session. NASDA’s NASS Program Director Charlie Ingram participated and worked with enumerators on the practice exercises. An awards ceremony and banquet dinner was held on the evening of May 12 to recognize the excellent work performed by the NASS-NASDA team members."
On Tuesday, May 11, NASS New England Field Office Director Gary Keough opened the workshop and thanked the NASDA Supervisors and Enumerators for their work. Dave Mikelson, Survey Manager and Ag Statistician in the NASS Field Office, provided an overview of the workshop agenda. Gary and Dave noted that the 2010 June Survey land sample has a total of 165 land segments, including 118 new segments. In 2009, the New England enumerator team had an 86.7% survey completion rate—the overall U.S. response rate was 82%. This year, the New England team has 9 new enumerators who will be working on the June Survey for the first time.
The June Area survey is one of the largest annual NASS survey projects. It is designed to account for every acre of land, all agricultural activities, and land uses within segment boundaries. Data collected by NASDA enumerators on behalf of NASS include: crop acreage, grain stocks, livestock inventory (including cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry), land values, cash rents, farm numbers, and value of sales.