Page 398 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 2

CPS1900 Ágnes P.

New ways to increase motivation of
respondents in Hungary
Ágnes Patay
Hungarian Central Statistical Office

Abstract
Based on Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 Orchard Survey, 2017 was
conducted in Hungary between 14 February 2018-16 April 2018.
Beside the regular communication techniques (advertisements, press
conferences) the data collection had several new aspects to increase response
rate, level of interaction with the respondents and their willingness for
cooperation:
- before the online period a storytelling application was prepared to
promote the already available free data on the website of the
Hungarian Central Statistical Office,
- on conferences and other professional events high-level management
presentations of the Ministry contained information on the importance
of Orchard survey, 2017 to promote farmers involvement (data needed
for evidence-based decision making),
- at the end of the questionnaire respondents were asked whether they
would like a feedback on the survey results and related publications.
The project has closed with very good results in several aspects:
- a record high share of self-administered questionnaires during the
two-week long period. More than 50% of the respondents filled the
questionnaire online. Before this data collection the highest rate in
case of agricultural data collections was 16%,
- the overall response rate was also extremely high. More than 99% of
the farmers filled the questionnaire by the deadline,
- more than 50% of the respondents asked for feedback, and
information on publications based on the results,
- at the time of the first publication a newsletter was sent out to these
farmers, the result was that the publication of the preliminary results
in May attracted record high number of visitors.
As a summary during these couple of months official statistics on agriculture
got higher public and media attention. More users became aware of the
available agricultural statistics, and different data collections on this field. We
have analysed the data collection in detail and as preparation for the
Agricultural Census 2020 have started already in Hungary we would like to use
all the experiences, lessons learned and best practices originated from this
Orchard Survey.

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