The Department of Agriculture plans to submit an information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act. The request involves the Agricultural Surveys Program, which collects data to help make estimates about crop production, livestock inventories, and more. Due to COVID-19, many changes were made to the surveys for 2020, such as suspending face-to-face interviews. For 2021, some survey questions were modified to allow data collection via telephone, continuing social distancing efforts. The program is crucial for providing farmers, policymakers, and others with necessary agricultural statistics, and it has a large number of respondents, predominantly farms and ranches.
Simple Explanation
The Department of Agriculture wants to ask many farmers questions to learn about crops and animals, but because of COVID-19, they changed how they ask these questions, now using phone calls instead of meeting in person. They need a special permission to continue asking these questions in this new way.