by Ben Nuelle
A select group of farmers across Iowa and the nation should have received an economic survey from the USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service recently.
The economic survey is called the Agriculture Resource Management Survey. Greg Thessen is Regional Director of the NASS Upper Midwest office in Des Moines.
He says this survey provides critical information to congress for the upcoming farm bill.
?The main reason we do the ARM Survey is to get a picture of the economic well-being of farms and rural communities. If you think about that, a lot of that type of information is what lawmakers want when they are designing the farm bill. The farm bill is going to be coming up this year. The information is used for just about any federal farm law or policy that gets put into effect.?
Thessen says it?s important to fill those surveys out.
?It is really their opportunity to provide input for the policies that are going to affect them. In that regard, it is important for them to provide the real-world data politicians need. Most of the senators and representatives don?t have an agricultural background.?
