Biannual Potato Area and Yield Survey (PAYS)

Summary of changes

Activity on this program started: 1995

Reference period of change - 2023

Instrument design - In 2023, to lower respondent burden, questions on 'the quantity and price of potatoes sold in the previous year' and 'the percentage of harvested potatoes that are expected to make grade' were removed from the June and October questionnaires and replaced by alternative data sources.

Reference period of change - 2017

In 2017 the collection mode changed from CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) to EQ-IBSP (Electronic Questionnaire - Integrated Business Survey Process).
During the questionnaire redesign of the IBSP June occasion, two changes were made. 1)'Quantity and price' had been changed to 'quantity and total value' of potatoes sold and 2) the order of some of the questions has changed.

Imputation - Previously, a more manual imputation process was in place. Additionally, total non-response was addressed through a re-weighting process whereas now it is handled in imputation.

Estimation - In previous occasions, weight adjustments were performed to compensate for non-response, but this is now handled through imputation. Previous variance estimates were based only on sampling variance and did not include variance due to imputation.

Reference period of change - 2014

Instrument design - In 2014, questions on the quantity and price of potatoes sold in the previous year were added. These questions were taken from the cancelled monthly Potato Price Survey.

Reference period of change - 2003

Target population - As of 2003, The provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia were added to the target population.