Federated Farmers Submission on the 2017 Agricultural Production Census

Federated Farmers also acknowledges that robust and credible official statistics relating to agriculture and to the wider economy is critical for good public policy.
Although Federated Farmers finds information from the APS and APC to be valuable, the Federation is very conscious about the survey burden on farmers.
When the author of this submission consulted Federated Farmers’ National Council on this issue, the response from elected representatives was very strong.

Farmers feel over-surveyed. Farmers seem to be a particularly heavily surveyed cohort, with numerous surveys from other industry players (commercial and non-commercial) on top of the APS and APC. Unlike other surveys though the APS and APC are compulsory under the Statistics Act so must be completed.

Another concern of those consulted on this submission was that many feel they are expected to complete the APS every year and that it feels more like a census than a survey.
As well as the number of surveys the length of the surveys is also important. In Federated Farmers’ experience the longer the survey the less inclined respondents are to participate and the less accurate the responses, especially if the answers require information that is not easy to access or recall. A number of people consulted in the preparation of this submission admitted that by the end of the APS or APC questionnaire some of the answers were guesses or were not answered.

Federated Farmers acknowledges that Statistics NZ has moved increasingly to using official data held by other government agencies as a way to reduce the survey burden. This is appreciated and should be expanded wherever possible.

See the full submission for more information