USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) has fully integrated the Census of Agriculture website into its primary website to provide a consistent look and feel across a single site, making navigation and access to census data easier and more intuitive. Merging the census and NASS websites responds to feedback from customers, stakeholders, and partners, who asked for access to all NASS data in the same visit, including on mobile devices. The merge is one of several customer experience improvements NASS is undertaking.
“In advance of releasing new Census of Agriculture data early next year, NASS has taken steps to make finding, accessing, and using new and historical census data faster and easier,” said NASS Administrator Hubert Hamer. “Along with other improvements, the website merge offers customers new ways of interacting with and responding to NASS.”
Merging the census and NASS websites also improves search capabilities for census information and brings responsive design to census content, making it accessible on mobile phones, tablets and other devices. Census of Agriculture information can now be found at www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus.
Other recent NASS customer improvements include:
- Improved online survey response. Launched in early 2018 in time for census response, the updated online survey response form is now being expanded for use in all NASS national surveys. The user-friendly questionnaire is accessible on any device, calculates totals automatically, and skips questions that do not apply.
- Data visualization. The growing body of NASS data that can be depicted in interactive form shows patterns, trends, and correlations for key commodities and agricultural resources.
- New ways of communicating with NASS survey recipients. NASS has traditionally reached out to farmers and ranchers through mail, telephone, and personal visits when asking them to respond to NASS surveys. More recently, NASS is testing out communicating through email and text to encourage survey response and offering to send survey results via email.
“These initiatives reinforce our commitment to listening to and serving our customers,” said Hamer. “Through large and small improvements in technology and presentation, we strive to continually improve content and how we operate.”
Source: USDA NASS