Beef cattle, except feedlots ^02/2^/— Production or feeding 

 of beef cattle, except feedlots. 



Dairy farms ^024^— Production of cows' milk and other 

 dairy products and raising of dairy heifer replacements. 



Poultry and eggs ^025^— Chickens, chicken eggs, turkeys, 

 duck, geese, pheasants, pigeons, and quail. 



Animal specialties ^027,/ — Fur-bearing animals, rabbits, 

 horses, ponies, bees, fish in captivity except fish hatcheries, 

 worms, and laboratory animals. 



General farms, primarily livestock ^025,/ — Livestock and 

 livestock products, including animal specialties, but less 

 than 50 percent of sales from any single 3-digit industry 

 group. Includes farms with no agricultural products sold 

 reporting livestock or pasture. 



STATISTICAL ADJUSTMENTS 



The 1982 Census of Agriculture used two types of statistical 

 adjustment-nonresponse and sample. In Hawaii, all farms were 

 surveyed for all data items so that only nonresponse adjustment 

 was necessary. For consistency with other publications, certain 

 data Items continue to be referred to as sample items. 



Nonresponse 



Farms for which no response was obtained from the mailout/ 

 mailback self-enumeration procedure were classified as "large" 

 or "small" based on expected sales being above or below 

 $100,000. The small nonrespondents were classified even further 

 using other mail list characteristics. 



A short report form was then sent to a sample selected from 

 the various classifications of small farms to obtain information 

 needed to develop a State estimate of the number of nonre- 

 spondents that were in fact farms. If this second report form was 

 not returned, then a telephone follow-up was attempted. 



For all large farms, a telephone follow-up was conducted. 

 Some operators could not be contacted or they refused 

 to cooperate. In these cases, secondary sources such as 

 ASCS county offices, extension agents, and previous census 

 reports were utilized whenever possible to provide reports for 

 tabulation. 



State estimates of the percentage of nonrespondent farms 

 were made for several strata. These estimates were then used to 

 make estimates at the county level for each stratum. Respondent 

 farms were then randomly selected within county stratum to 

 represent the nonrespondent farms by having a nonresponse 

 weight of two. All other respondent farms had a nonresponse 

 weight of one. 



The nonresponse adjustment procedure makes the assump- 

 tion that the respondents and the nonrespondents have similar 

 statistical properties. Also, the use of secondary sources for 

 some large farms and the fact that a percentage of the sampled 

 farms were not contacted by either mail or telephone is assumed 

 not to affect the estimates for nonrespondents. 



Table A partially measures the effect of nonresponse on 

 selected major items at the State level. This estimate of the non- 

 response rate measures only the effect of small whole farm 

 nonresponse. The effect of the adjustment for nonresponse 

 due to complete nonresponse among large farms and item 



nonresponse among all farms is not included in table A. The 

 percentages in table A indicate the potential for bias in pub- 

 lished figures resulting from small farm nonresponse. However, 

 large farm nonresponse does not necessarily indicate bias. 

 Individual county nonresponse rates may differ substantially 

 from the State value in table A. 



Table A. Percent of State Total Represented by 



Adjustment of Whole Farm Nonresponse: 1982 



Item 



Farms 



Land in farms 



Value of land and buildings 



Market value of agricultural products sold 



Harvested cropland 



Corn for grain or seed 



Wheat for grain 



Inventory: 



Cattle and calves 



Hogs and pigs 



Hens and pullets of laying age 



. number. 



. .acres. 

 .$1,000. 

 .SI, 000. 



. acres. 



. .acres. 



. . acres. 



.number. 

 . number. 

 . number. 



Percent 

 of total 



8.7 

 0.5 

 2.3 

 0.6 

 0.7 

 0.2 

 0.0 



1.2 

 3.4 

 (D) 



NONSAMPLING ERRORS 



Each census or survey is subject to error. In addition to 

 sampling variability, errors arise from nonsample sources such 

 as incorrect or incomplete reporting, processing, and the in- 

 ability to obtain a report from each eligible reporting unit. For 

 example, an operator may report the number of hogs and pigs 

 sold but may not report the value of the sale. In other cases, 

 the respondent indicated the presence of an item but not the 

 quantity. The accuracy of a census count is determined by the 

 joint effects of sampling and nonsampling errors. Thus, extensive 

 efforts were made to keep errors introduced during clerical and 

 electronic processing to a minimum level through the use of 

 quality control, verification, and check measures on specific 

 operations. 



CENSUS COVERAGE 



Although a complete and accurate count of farms, land in 

 farms, and farm production is the aim of each nationwide 

 census of agriculture, the complex structure of America's agri- 

 culture makes this difficult to achieve. Among the complexi- 

 ties are the many places to be included, the variety of arrange- 

 ments under which farms are operated, the continuing changes 

 in the relationship of operators to the farm operated, the 

 expiration of leases and the initiation or renewal of leases, the 

 problem of obtaining a complete list of agricultural operations, 

 the difficulty of locating and identifying some types of farms, 

 the operator's absence from the farm during the data collection 

 period, and the operator's opinion that part or all of the opera- 

 tion does not qualify and should not be included in the census. 



An evaluation of coverage has been conducted for each 

 census of agriculture since 1945. Although the primary purpose 

 of these evaluations is to identify problem areas and supply 

 evidence as a basis for improvements, they also provide users of 

 census data with estimates of the completeness of the census 

 counts. The results of the coverage evaluation study were pub- 

 lished for the 1978 census in Volume 5, Special Reports, part 3. 

 An evaluation of coverage was conducted in 1982 to measure 



1982 CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE 



APPENDIX A A-9 



