Justification IC - Malathon Use in Vegetable Production FY 2021

Request for Approval under Generic Clearance of Multiple Crop and Pesticide Use Information Collection (OMB Control Number 0503-0026)

1.	IC Title:	Malathion Use in Vegetable Production FY2021 Survey
2.	Bureau/Office:	USDA Office of Pest Management Policy
3.	Purpose of Collection: The primary purpose of this information is to support OPMP’s understanding of agricultural pest management practices. OPMP is undertaking this effort to satisfy legislative requirements outlined in Title X, Section 10109 of the 2018 Farm Bill, which mandates that the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the Director of OPMP, shall conduct a multiple crop and pesticide use survey to collect data for risk assessment modeling and active ingredient mitigations.
4.	Bureau/Office Point of Contact Information
	First Name:	Seth
	Last Name:	Wechsler
	Title:	Agricultural Economist
	Bureau/Office:	USDA Office of Pest Management Policy
	Address:	1400 Independence Ave., SW
	City:	Washington	State:	DC	Zip code:	20250-3817
	Phone:	301-412-8838	Fax:
	Email:	seth.wechsler@usda.gov
5.	Principal Investigator (PI) Information [If different from #4]
	First Name:
	Last Name:
	Title:
	Bureau/Office:
	Address:
	City:		State:		Zip code:
	Phone:		Fax:
	Email:

6.

Lead Agency IC Clearance Officer Reviewing the IC:

First Name:

Ruth

Last Name:

Brown

Title:

Departmental Information Clearance Officer

Phone:

202-720-8958

Email:

ruth.brown@usda.gov

7.

Description of Population/Potential Respondents

The potential respondent universe will consist of agricultural experts. In many cases, these experts are also agricultural producers. These experts include Certified Crop Advisors (CCAs) associated with the American Society of Agronomy Certified Crop Advisors (CCAs), Crop Consultants with the National Alliance of Independent Crop Consultants (NAICC), and University agricultural specialists (including Extension experts) that work with or on behalf of agriculturalists, such as farmers, ranchers, nursery operators, animal operations (cattle, chickens, catfish, etc.), foresters, beekeepers, farm managers, farm contractors, extermination and pest control operators, postharvest crop packing and/or processing activities, and/or cotton ginning. OPMP estimates that the total potential respondent universe is 12,755 as an upper-bound estimate.

8.

IC Dates

9/20/2021

To

10/31/2021

9.

Type of Information Collection Instrument (Check ALL that Apply)

Intercept

__ Telephone

__ Mail

__ Web-based

__ Focus Groups

__ Comment Cards

_X_ Other

Explain: Email survey to selected participants

10. Description of Activity

Participants will receive a link to the survey via email. OPMP is partnering with the American Society of Agronomy and the National Alliance of Independent Crop Consultants to reach out to the selected group of participants (Certified Crop Advisors (CCAs) and Independent Crop Advisors).

Participants will have the opportunity to respond to four (4) demographic questions and ten (10) questions regarding the use of malathion in vegetable production. OPMP anticipates that the survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Participation is completely voluntary, and all responses will remain anonymous.

11. Survey Questions and Topic Areas from Question Bank that will be addressed in the IC:

 

Survey Question Section & Number	Compendium Topic Area	Compendium Question Identifier
Section 1, Q1	Demographic Questions	Question Bank ID 1 (for demographic questions)
Section 1, Q2	Demographic Questions	Question Bank ID 2 (for demographic questions)
Section 1, Q3	Demographic Questions	Question Bank ID 3 (for demographic questions)
Section 1, Q4	Demographic Questions	Question Bank ID 4 (for demographic questions)
Section 2, Q1	Target Pests	Question Bank ID 230
Section 2, Q1B	Number of Applications	Question Bank ID 207
Section 2, Q2	Number of Applications	Question Bank ID 207
Section 2, Q3	Target Pests	Question Bank ID 195
Section 2, Q4	Use and Usage	Question Bank ID 223
Section 2, Q5	Alternatives	Question Bank ID 3
Section 2, Q6	Application Methods and Practices	Question Bank ID 46
Section 2, Q7	Geographic Considerations	Question Bank ID 120
Section 2, Q8	Geographic Considerations	Question Bank ID 119
Section 2, Q9	Geographic Considerations	Question Bank ID 121
Section 2, Q10	Geographic Considerations	Question Bank ID 122

12. Methodology:

(Use as much space as needed; if necessary include additional explanation on separate page).

Respondent Universe

The potential respondent universe will consist of individuals whom are agricultural experts. OPMP estimates that the total potential respondent universe is 12,755 as an upper-bound estimate.

Sampling Plan/Procedure

This data collection is a census of individual crop consultants and extensions professionals. Consequently, sampling is not necessary.

Instrument Administration

The survey will be distributed to participants via email with two weeks of time to provide feedback.

Commercial survey software will be the primary method for automatically collecting feedback, which may be accessed through the internet or a smartphone. The USDA-approved platform fully meets software and security requirements for sensitive data.

Expected Response Rate and Confidence Levels

The overall survey sample size is expected to be approximately 12,755 respondents. At this time, OPMP is unable to predict the expected response rate as this is a new collection. OPMP will keep ongoing records to document response rates and any changes in these rates over the three-year period.

OPMP ideally would like to see response rates of greater than 60%, yet rather than placing a focus on high response rates, a more significant effort will be put towards reducing non-response bias. Special emphasis will be placed on providing respondents with transparency around the purpose of the survey; ensuring clear and interpretable survey instruments; and building good relationships with each population from which information is being collected, as their endorsement of the effort is a critical component in garnering ongoing grower participation.

Strategies for dealing with potential non-response bias

To maximize response rates and deal with non-response, OPMP is taking the following measures:

• OPMP only plans to target sub-census respondents to the greatest degree possible to only request information from relevant agricultural systems. For example, if a registration review proposed decisions is expected to affect cherry production in Michigan, only entities with a cherry affiliation in the state of Michigan will be contacted.

• When reaching out to Certified Crop Advisors (CCAs) and Independent Crop Advisors, the American Society of Agronomy and the National Alliance of Independent Crop Consultants have agreed to partner with OPMP (see Appendix B). These collaborations will not only help OPMP in identifying appropriate sub-census populations for individual information collections but will also help in building rapport and relationships with respondents.

• OPMP will seek to promote response rates by reducing unnecessary outreach/survey fatigue. This is being done via:

• Limiting non-demographic questions to ten or less and limiting questions to those included in the Question Bank,

• Reviewing in-house respondent lists prior to any information collection to ensure non-duplicative contacts,

• Collaborate with social scientists for assistance with the design of questions and survey instruments to reduce non-response bias,

• Continued outreach efforts with grower groups and other agricultural organizations that can act as liaisons and promoters for the effort.

To reduce the collection of unreliable data, OPMP will:

• Review responses to determine if a respondent potentially responded with erroneous information. Any such discussion will be documented in final reports,

• When possible, results will be compared with available benchmarks to ensure the validity of the responses.

13.

Total Expected Number of Respondents & Non-Respondents

Initial Contacts: 12,755

Expected Respondents: 7,653

Non-responses: 5,102

14.

Estimated Time to Complete Instrument & Non-response time

Instrument completion: 15 minutes

Non-response time: 2 minutes

15.

Total Burden Hours

Respondents

Non-responses

-------------------

Total

1,913 hours

170 hours

-------------------

2,083 hours

16. Reporting Plan: Survey results will be made available to key OPMP stakeholder groups to explain the findings and their implications. The results of this information collection activity will be presented in an internal report and online dashboards to OPMP. Survey results will also be made available in public-facing online dashboards.

17. Justification, Purpose, and Use:

IC Justification and Purpose

OPMP is undertaking this effort to satisfy legislative requirements outlined in Title X, Section 10109 of the 2018 Farm Bill, which mandates that the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the Director of OPMP, shall conduct a multiple crop and pesticide use survey to collect data for risk assessment modeling and active ingredient mitigations.

As outlined in the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998, outreach to gather pest management information is a key responsibility of OPMP, which is mandated to “consult with agricultural producers that may be affected by pest management or pesticide-related activities or actions of the Department or other agencies.” The data collected by OPMP will improve OPMP’s ability to better understand the use of pest management tools. The data collected will provide time-sensitive information about the use of agricultural pest management practices.

IC Goals

The information collection planned for this project is a key tool for OPMP to obtain information in an efficient, timely manner, for the purposes of gathering information about agricultural pest management practices. The survey instrument included in this study is designed to ensure that the results are adequately accurate, reliable, and applicable for their intended purposes - to help OPMP satisfy the legislative requirements outlines in the 2018 Farm Bill and collect data for risk assessment modeling and active ingredients mitigations.

How will the results of the IC be analyzed and used?

Information from the survey will be coded using Excel, and then analyzed in Medallia, a USDA-approved survey management and analysis platform. All data will be stored in electronically and archived according to established data management procedures required by the Federal Government. Upon study completion, the survey results will be available in public-facing dashboards in a suitable online format, along with proper documentation.

Is this survey intended to measure a Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) performance measure? If so, please include an excerpt from the appropriate document. (Use as much space as needed; if necessary include additional explanation on separate page).

This IC is not intended to measure a GPRA performance measure.