Bioproducts Production and Development Survey

Detailed information for 2009

The survey provides information on firms that are developing or producing bioproducts using biomass or other renewable or sustainable feedstocks/materials.

Data release - February 24, 2011

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

Statistics Canada is conducting this survey on behalf of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. The objectives of the survey are to provide statistical information on the bioproducts sector and produce a profile of firms engaged in the production and/or development of bioproducts in Canada. The survey focuses on the key characteristics and activities of firms that develop or produce bioproducts as part of their firm's activity in Canada.

Bioproducts is an emerging sector of the Canadian economy and their impact has the potential to be felt through all parts of Canada's society. An accurate understanding of bioproducts requires comprehensive data. Information from this survey may be used by businesses for economic or market analysis, by trade associations to study industry performance, government departments, agencies and industry development practitioners to assist in and evaluate policy, programs and initiatives that promote growth, and by the academic community for research purposes.

The survey addresses the following question: What are the characteristics and activities of firms that develop and/or produce bioproducts as an important part of their activities? Specifically, it collects data on the characteristics of bioproduct firms including their use of biomass and other renewable/sustainable biomaterials, the types and number of bioproducts being developed, benefits and constraints related to developing bioproducts, human resources devoted to bioproducts, financial profile, business practices, access to financing capital and the use of government support programs.

For the purpose of this survey biomass feedstocks includes biological materials from forestry, agriculture, marine and aquaculture sources, or of a micro-biological origin; by-products from processing (e.g., agricultural/ forestry/ pulp & paper/ food/feed processing); recycled bio-materials (e.g., construction/ demolition materials); and waste materials (e.g., municipal solid wastes).

For the purpose of this survey, we are interested in "non-conventional industrial bioproducts". Examples include: biofuels (e.g., ethanol, biodiesel), organic chemicals (e.g., biopolymers), pesticides, non-conventional building/construction materials and composites. Traditional bioproducts, such as wood products could be considered in scope for this survey only if they were made by a non-conventional or novel process.

Examples of excluded bioproducts are: e.g., food, nutraceuticals, feed, medicines, structural lumber, dimensional wood products, paper, and conventionally made fiberboards, wood pellets, parallum, oriented strand board (OSB), composite wood products, and compost.

Statistical activity

Science and technology (S&T) and the information society are changing the way we live, learn and work. The concepts are closely intertwined: science generates new understanding of the way the world works, technology applies it to develop innovative products and services, and the information society is one of the results of the innovations.

People are looking to Statistics Canada to measure and explain the social and economic impacts of these changes.

The purpose of this program is to develop useful indicators of S&T activity in Canada and to present them coherently.

Subjects

• Biotechnology
• Science and technology

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The survey's target population includes all firms in Canada that use biomass and other renewable or sustainable feedstocks/materials to develop or produce bioproducts (bioproducts other than food, feed, and medicince).

Excluded from the survey were not-for-profit organizations, universities, government laboratories, hospitals, firms that provide only services, such as contract research organizations or consulting firms, firms that only provide technology to bioproducts producers and those firms involved in biomass improvement only.

Instrument design

The questionnaire was prepared with the active participation of partners and in consultation with a group of bioproducts industry experts offering a range of skills and interests. After the initial design of the questionnaire, tests were conducted with prospective respondents, whose comments (design) were incorporated into the final version.

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design.

The frame is constructed from three sources:

1) Enterprises from the BR that were in scope during the 2006 occasion of the bioproduct survey.

2) Lists of firms obtained from federal partners, provincial/territorial bioproducts industry associations and industry experts.

3) Enterprises from the BR that were in scope during the 2007 occasion of the Survey on Emerging Technology 2007 (Pre-contact) (SET). The SET 2007 frame was constructed from Statistics Canada's Business Register (BR). That frame contained certain NAICS from which a subset was used to construct the current frame.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2010-04-09 to 2010-06-18

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

Even though this survey is a census, it can be viewed in two steps. The first step is a pre-contact, which was by phone. For the second step, the current survey, all enterprises indicating that they have developed or produced bioproducts from the pre-contact get the bioproduct questionnaire. The pre-contact is very important for three reasons. The first one is that, since enterprises that develop or produce bioproducts are a rare population, it would cost too much and have too much of a burden to send the complete bioproduct questionnaire to all enterprises in a predetermined North American Industry Classification (NAICS) to only get a low percentage usable questionnaires back. The second reason is that it helps us get a better picture of the in scope population. This information will be used later at the weighting stage. The last reason is that it helps us determine the appropriate contact information to send the bioproduct questionnaire.

The pre-contact was used to help target the population and determine the name and correct mailing address for the respondent. Questionnaires were mailed out, with mail, telephone and fax follow ups carried out to elicit a response from non-respondents. In some cases, respondents completed the questionnaire over the phone with responses entered on a paper questionnaire by the interviewer.

The questionnaire was sent to approximately 450 firms which were respondents at the pre-contact and identified as being in the scope of the survey.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

In order to identify, minimize and correct errors, the following quality measures were applied to the data:

- A manual review is performed to ensure that the questionnaire coverage is as anticipated and that a complete response has been provided.

- During the capture process, the data are subjected to computerized edits. These edits are designed to ensure that the accounting relationships are respected and that related variables have been respected and related variables have been reported on a consistent basis.

- Unusual occurrences are queried for confirmation and clarified with the respondents concerned.

- If it was not possible to confirm with the respondents, ratios were calculated to validate the answer. If the values where considered non-valid, imputation was done.

Imputation

Mandatory questions on the survey were not imputed. These questions dealt with the type of bioproducts and the stage of development they were in, as well the type and amount (in metric tonics) of biomass used. Imputation for partial or total non-response for other questions is made on the basis of a full response by a respondent with similar characteristics, in this survey, the province, the sector of activity and the size of the firm. Due to the qualitative nature of most of the questions, the "hot deck" imputation method was used for the majority of the questions.

Estimation

In order to palliate for non-response, an adjustment factor for weighting was applied to the homogeneous response groups created from the sector of activity. This adjustment factor is used as a final weight to produce estimates. To calculate the variance, a stratified random sample formula was used. The strata were formed by the respondent homogeneous groups mentioned previously.

Quality evaluation

To ensure data quality, Statistics Canada took into account and applied throughout the survey process all six dimensions of data quality control, namely, the relevance, accuracy, timeliness, accessibility, interpretability and coherence of the data collected, as per its mandate.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.

Data accuracy

The data accuracy indicators used for the Bioproducts Production and Development Survey are the standard error and the coefficient of variation.

The standard error is a commonly used statistical measure indicating the sampling error of an estimate. The standard error and the coefficient of variation (standard error expressed as a percentage of the estimate) were used in statistical tables to provide an indication of the data quality level of the estimates. Please note that the coefficient of variation (CV) was not calculated for percentage tables.

The results were weighted to reflect the entire count of firms in the selected industries. Estimates were vetted for compliance with confidentiality rules. Data quality was assessed in consultation with the methodology team, and when the data were unreliable, they were not published.

The Bioproducts Production and Development Survey response rate was 58.5%