Important: USDA census?????UPDATE!

[seminolewind]

Hi, I received this envelope in the mail from "Census Agricultural Statistics Service" from the "USDA". It says my response is required by law. Its a 24 page questionaire about my farming, and poultry, and livestock. It also asks about acreage and financial income.
I don't have a farm. I have some pet chickens and 2 horses on an acre zoned residential. Plus it's addressed to my maiden name which I changed 4 years ago.
Did anyone else receive one of these?

 

[Bawkadoodledoo]

Sounds a bit fishy to me, but thats me.

 

[Buster]

I'd be suspicious- I don't think it's any of the government's business what kind of animals I have, and why should they pick on you anyway? If I received a letter like that, I would call the USDA office and ask them what it's all about before responding.

 

[MissPrissy]

Having worked for the Census Bureau in years past I do know they mean what they say. If you don't return it, even with the notation that you don't have a farm, eventually a person will be sent to your house, after that the sherrif comes out and then it gets to be a federal case.

You do have 2 horses and even though they are your pets they are agricultural livestock. Therefore by Federal standards you are a 1 acre farm even though your local gov't won't classify you that way because most places say it has to be 5 acres or more to be a farm and that is for the local tax base classifications.

Edited to add -

There is an agricultural census that gets recorded the same as a people census.

 

[Wildsky]

Well if it didn't arrive at your door certified mail - you didn't get it.

 

[speckledhen]

First of all, people in apartments are getting those, probably because they subscribe to Farmers Market Bulletins or some equally stupid reason. My neighbor who does not own any animals except her one old dog got one because her log home sits on 20 acres. And they do NOT know you got it if they didn't have you sign for it. You can't be punished if you didn't get something they relied on the dang P.O. to deliver. The Post Office loses my bill payments and egg shipments. Why wouldn't they lose that? C'mon here! I don't do census and with the ugliness of NAIS, I myself will not fill out one of those things.
I suggest you read these articles before you send it back:
http://nonais.org/index.php/2006/06/12/2006-agriculture-identification-survey/
http://nonais.org/index.php/2007/01/17/a-lawyer-farmers-view-of-nass/

 

[seminolewind]

It really does sound fishy to me. Beside, it was mailed to my mom's address and my maiden name. It says USDA, but nowhere in the letter or form does it say United States Dept. of Agriculture.
MissPrissy, is there anyone I can contact about this?

 

[seminolewind]

I went to the USDA website, and looked up forms, and typed in the form number, and it does not exist!!!!!

 

[ole-crone]

I received one.

From the genealogical point of view, in the future your descendants will know how many chickens you had, etc. The maiden name on the envelope will let them know that you married sometime between the two census. The number of animals you owned will help them evaluate your worth and lastly, they might discover where they inherited their love of animals from

I know, NAIS worries me too but that aside, this census will helps us see how the make-up of the US is changing.

It can help people prove that they have animal rights for their piece of property.

It can be used to show how much ag land has been lost to development.

It might help if you have zoning issues with neighbors who complain that they don't like the smell of your animals.

This is real and I received a phone call months ago about it, asking if I was willing to participate and if we still considered ourselves agricultural.

If people in apartments are receiving them, their apartments might have been farmland 10 years ago.

Receiving one using your maiden name just shows that they don't constantly keep their files updated.

 

[Katy]

We get them...got one last week...but we're full time farmers.