Annual Greenhouse, Sod and Nursery Survey

Detailed information for 2011

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Annual

Record number:

3416

The purpose of this survey is to collect information on the production and value of greenhouse products, nursery stocks and sod produced in Canada.

Data release - May 3, 2012

Description

This survey collects data on greenhouse, sod and nursery operations in Canada. The data are used by federal and provincial agriculture departments and producer associations to perform market trend analysis and to study domestic production with particular interest on imports. This survey also contributes to the Agricultural receipts program of Statistics Canada.

Reference period: Calendar year

Subjects

  • Agriculture and food (formerly Agriculture)
  • Crops and horticulture

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The survey frame has been designed to include all operations cultivating greenhouse, sod and nursery products based on the latest Census of Agriculture. Institutional farms, farms on Indian reservations, Hutterite colonies as well as operations from Yukon, the North West Territories and Nunavut were excluded from the survey. After these exclusions the remaining farms represent the initial survey frame.

Observations on the survey frame have been extracted from the previous year's Greenhouse, Sod and Nursery Survey and the Census of Agriculture, to which have been added some operations coming from external sources. The new operations are either new farms since the Census or farms missed by the Census.

Excluded from the survey frame were greenhouse areas of glass or plastic conservatories maintained for non-commercial purposes. Also excluded were greenhouse only operations in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia with less than 5,000 square feet and greenhouse sales less than $10,000. Greenhouse only operations in the remaining provinces with less than 1,000 square feet were excluded from the survey frame. Furthermore, sod only operations with less than 40 acres (10 acres in the Atlantic) and nursery only operations with less than 5 acres were excluded from the survey frame.

Instrument design

The questionnaires were developed by subject matter experts through consultation with the provinces and industry experts. The Operations and Integration Division and the Crops Section of the Collection, Planning and Management Division of Statistics Canada conduct in-house testing for flow and consistency.

Subject matter experts may change, add or remove questions. This typically happens because of changes in market trends or because of information in debriefing reports from field staff.

New questions were pre-tested in the field in 2008. This included testing the cognitive process of respondents in answering questions and other tests to obtain feedback for the design of the questionnaire.

Sampling

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

For each province, four strata were defined. The first stratum includes operations with a greenhouse area of less than 1 acre, sales of less than $110,000, no nursery or sod area, and that reported flower production in the 2006 Census of Agriculture. The second stratum includes all operations with a greenhouse area of less than 1 acre, sales of less than $110,000, no nursery or sod area, and that did not report flower production in the 2006 Census of Agriculture. The third stratum includes all operations with a greenhouse area of less than 1 acre, sales of less than $110,000, nursery area greater than zero and less than 5 acres, and no sod area. All remaining operations were placed in the fourth stratum. Within each province, operations were sampled in the first three strata and a census was taken of all units in the fourth stratum. For each stratum where sampling was done, the minimum sample size was 15 and the maximum design weight was 5.

Overall, the sample size was determined in order to achieve a target CV of 0.01 (1%) for sales, greenhouse area and nursery area at the provincial level. The final sample size for this survey was 5,342. For this survey, we used two questionnaire versions: one full version requesting all the required information and one abridged version that essentially only requests totals. Following the sample selection, we allocated one of the two versions of the questionnaire to each operation sampled. The allocation was done based on province of operation and sales volume. We allocated the full version to 3,913 operations and the abridged version to 1,429 operations.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2012-01-09 to 2012-01-29

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

The survey information is collected by telephone interview in Statistics Canada Regional Offices, using a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) application. Questionnaires are mailed to the farm a few weeks prior to collection for the farmer's reference during the interview.

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

Error detection

With the introduction of the CATI methodology, it is now possible to implement edit procedures at the time of the interview. Computer programmed edit checks in the CATI system inform interviewers during the interview of possible data errors, which can then be corrected immediately by the interviewer and respondent. The CATI system significantly reduces the need for subsequent telephone follow-up, thereby reducing respondent burden and survey processing time.

Imputation

Erroneous data and partially completed questionnaires are imputed using historical data information.

Estimation

The survey data collected are weighted within each stratum in order to produce estimates representative of the population. Non-responding units, for example, no contacts and refusals, are dealt with by adjusting the initial sample weights.

Quality evaluation

Data verification and analysis of the top contributors and historical comparisons are performed before a final estimate is disseminated. Different sources of information are used to validate provincial estimations. No other surveys are available to compare directly with these survey results.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which 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.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.

Data accuracy

The Greenhouse, Sod and Nursery Survey obtained a response rate of approximately 83.0% of survey respondents.

The overall quality of the estimates depends on the combined effect of sampling and non-sampling errors. Sampling errors arise because estimates are derived from sample data and not the entire population. Non-sampling errors are errors which are not related to sampling and may occur throughout the survey operation for many reasons. For example, non-response is an important source of non-sampling error. Coverage, differences in the interpretation of questions, incorrect information from respondents, mistakes in recording, coding and processing of data are other examples of non-sampling errors.

The estimates published are based on a probability sample of farming operations. The potential error introduced by sampling can be estimated from the sample itself by using a statistical measure called the coefficient of variation (CV). Over repeated surveys, 95 times out of 100, the relative difference between a sample estimate and what would have been obtained from an enumeration of all farming operations would be less than twice the coefficient of variation. The sample estimate plus or minus twice the CV is referred to as the confidence interval. For the 2011 Annual Greenhouse, Sod and Nursery Survey, CVs at the Canada level range generally from 2% to 10% for the variables that are more frequently reported (area, investment, expenditures, sales, etc.), which makes them very reliable. Some variables on plant, flower and tree varieties have CVs greater than 25%. The coefficients of variation are available upon request.

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