An Examination of Best Practices for Survey Research with Agricultural Producers

Abstract

To improve the economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture, information is needed on how to target research, teaching, and outreach programs. However, conducting survey research in general, and with agricultural producers specifically, is increasingly challenging given issues such as declining response rates and limited resources. While studies examining the best practices for promoting higher response rates exist, few focus explicitly on agricultural producers. In three separate surveys conducted with agricultural producers in South Dakota in 2018 and 2019, we included experiments testing how token pre-incentives, a research partnership, and response mode options impacted response rates. We also examined how sample source and email augmentations influence survey responses. The study findings indicate that providing pre-incentives and multiple simultaneous response options can increase response rates with agricultural producers. On the other hand, email augmentation to mail surveys, sample source, and identification of select institutional research partnerships appear to have minimal effects.

Keywords:

• Best practices
• farmers
• incentives
• response rates
• survey research

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the producers who participated in each of the surveys as well as the graduate and undergraduate students who assisted with collecting the data. Funding for the 2018 South Dakota Commodity Crop Producer Sustainability Survey was provided by the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council. Funding for the 2019 South Dakota Grassland Livestock Producer Parasiticide Survey was from a grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The 2019 South Dakota Farmer Nutrient Management Survey was funded by the South Dakota Nutrient Research and Education Council.

Notes

1 For example, while farmers are aging like the rest of the U.S. population (see Ahearn and Newton 2009), they tend to have higher median incomes than other U.S. households (Economic Research Service 2020), and primary operators are more likely to be male (American Farm Bureau Federation 2020).