Report Forms 
There were seven regionalized versions of the report 
forms used for the 2012 Census of Agriculture. The 
report form versions were designed to facilitate 
reporting crops most commonly grown within each 
report form region. Additionally, an American 
Indian report form was developed to facilitate 
reporting for operations on reservations in Arizona, 
New Mexico, and Utah. The regional report form 
numbers are: 12-A101, 12-A102, 12-A103, 12- 
A104, 12-A105, 12-A106 and 12-A107 (HI). The 
American Indian report form is 12-A200. All of the 
forms allowed respondents to write in specific 
commodities that were not listed on their form. 
Report Form Mailings 
Pre-notification by postcard or pre-recorded message 
began December 10, 2012. Approximately 3.0 
million mail packets were mailed in December 2012. 
Each packet contained a cover letter, instruction 
sheet, a labeled report form, and a return envelope. 
The Census Bureau’s National Processing Center 
(NPC) in Jeffersonville, IN was contracted to 
perform mail packet preparation, initial mailout, and 
two follow-up mailings to nonrespondents. 
The initial mailout was followed by a thank-you 
reminder postcard that was delivered in January 
2013 to all operations that received mail packets. 
First follow-up mail packets were mailed in mid- 
February 2013 to approximately 1.0 million 
nonrespondents. Second follow-up mail packets 
were mailed in mid-March 2013 to approximately 
750,000 nonrespondents. 
Personal Follow-up 
Operating concurrently with NPC’s mail data 
collection efforts, NASS telephone call centers 
targeted selected groups of census nonrespondents 
for telephone enumeration. NASS field offices 
targeted selected groups of census records for in- 
person enumeration. These efforts were referred to 
as: 
• Suspicious Out of Scope Follow-up 
• Criteria Record Follow-up 
• Must Case Follow-up 
• American Indian and Alaska Native Farm 
2012 Census of Agriculture 
USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service 
Operator Follow-up 
• Fow Response County Follow-up 
• Fast Call Nonresponse Follow-up 
• Not on Mail Fist (NMF) Follow-up 
Suspicious Out-of-Scope Follow-up. The Suspi- 
cious Out-of-Scope Follow-up was a phone follow- 
up that began in February 2013 and was conducted 
through May 2013. It included records that mailed 
their form back with a response that they were no 
longer farming. These operations had reported 
agricultural information in another survey during 
2012. The operations were re-contacted with a CATI 
instrument to either verify the respondent was not 
farming or complete a census report form. 
Criteria Record Follow-up. Nonrespondents and 
refusals to the National Agricultural Classification 
Surveys received unique coding on the CMF and are 
referred to collectively as Criteria Records for 
follow-up data collection. These Criteria Records 
typically had a lower probability of meeting the farm 
definition and were less likely to respond. It was 
critical to identify those records in this group that 
represented farms to provide coverage of the small 
farm population. Small farms make up a significant 
portion of the overall U.S. farm population. 
For the 2012 Census of Agriculture, 276,043 Criteria 
Records were included in the Census Mail Fist 
(CMF). A sample of 23,739 Criteria Records was 
selected for targeted data collection efforts. The 
sampled records were first contacted by telephone 
using the census CATI instrument beginning in 
February 2013 after the initial mail returns were 
processed. Certified mail to 18,831 respondents was 
used for those who could not be contacted by 
telephone. Data collection resulted in 10,887 returns 
from both telephone and certified mail. The in-scope 
rate from the returns was applied to the remaining 
criteria records during replication, which is described 
in the next sub-section. 
Must Case Follow-up. Must cases were known 
large operations, the absence of which could have 
significantly affected the accuracy of census results. 
For the 2012 Census of Agriculture, 118,533 records 
were categorized as Must cases. Each active Must 
operation was accounted for by mail receipt, phone 
interview, or personal enumeration; if an operation 
was no longer in operation, its nonfarm status was 
APPENDIX A A- 5 
