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The Farm Structure Surveys (french: L’enquête sur la structure des exploitations agricoles), also known as the Survey on the Structure of Agricultural Holdings, are the methodological basis for censuses of agricultural operations throughout the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
. The survey itself is used as the basis of an decennial European Union-wide
census of agriculture A census of agriculture is a statistical operation for collecting, processing and disseminating data on the structure of agriculture, covering the whole or a significant part of a country. Typical structural data collected in a census of agricultur ...
as well as for sample surveys conducted between these years.


Overview

At present, the Farm Structure Surveys are legislated through Regulation 1166/2008 of the
European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...
. Regulation 1166/2008 legislates both the decennial census of agriculture as well as follow-up surveys in 2013 and 2016. The focus on these standards is to provide “comparable data on agricultural activities, at the appropriate geographical level, and covering the whole Community” for the purposes of informing the
Common Agricultural Policy The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the agricultural policy of the European Union. It implements a system of agricultural subsidies and other programmes. It was introduced in 1962 and has since then undergone several changes to reduce the ...
within the European Union and agricultural policy within individual states. The census of agriculture is not operated concurrently to censuses of population throughout the European Union.


Methodology

While the individual methodology of the Farm Structure Survey varies country to country, the focus is on observing each individual “agricultural holding” and their characteristics, including land, livestock, and labour force characteristics as well as rural development measures. This agricultural holding, “a technical-economic unit, under single management, engaged in agricultural production” is the base unit of observation in the Farm Structure Surveys. Before 2007 this was defined as one hectare of “utilized agricultural area,” but since has become flexible, allowing individual countries to exclude only the smallest agricultural holdings which contribute 2% or less to total Utilized agricultural area or farm livestock units. Beyond this, specific physical thresholds are also given for inclusion: * Utilised agricultural area (arable land, kitchen gardens, permanent grassland, permanent crops): 5 hectares * Permanent outdoor crops (fruit, berry, citrus and olive plantations, vineyards and nurseries): 1 hectare * Other intensive production: * Fresh vegetables, melons and strawberries, which are outdoors or under low (not accessible) protective cover: 0.5 hectares * Tobacco: 0.5 hectares * Hops: 0.5 hectares * Cotton: 0.5 hectares * Crops under glass or other (accessible) protective cover: * Fresh vegetables, melons and strawberries: 0.1 hectares * Flowers and ornamental plants (excluding nurseries): 0.1 hectares * Bovine animals (all): 10 heads * Pigs (all): 50 heads * Breeding sows: 10 heads * Sheep (all): 20 heads * Goats (all): 20 heads * Poultry (all): 1 000 heads As the thresholds have changed varyingly from country to country, this complicates the direct comparability of findings between years and between countries, alongside to the varying agricultural identities and cultures which exist within the European Union. Like other censuses of agriculture, the information observed through the Farm Structure Surveys are protected by confidentiality in both limiting local parameters and aggregation of the reported data.


Standard gross margin

Standard gross margins or SGMs enable the classification of farms according to the type of enterprises on the farm and their relative contribution to overall profitability. The SGM provides a measure of a holding's business size, irrespective of its area and intensity of production. SGMs are calculated per unit area of
crops A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydroponi ...
and head of livestock, using standardized SGM
coefficients In mathematics, a coefficient is a multiplicative factor in some term of a polynomial, a series, or an expression; it is usually a number, but may be any expression (including variables such as , and ). When the coefficients are themselves ...
for each type of crop and livestock. Different SGM coefficients are calculated for different geographical regions to allow for differences in profit. SGMs are representative of the level of profit that could be expected on the average farm under "normal" conditions (i.e. no disease outbreaks or adverse weather).
Eurostat Eurostat ('European Statistical Office'; DG ESTAT) is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in the Kirchberg, Luxembourg, Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Eurostat's main responsibilities are to provide stati ...
uses SGMs for collating
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
farm statistics. In the UK, the
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's June census for agriculture also applies this classification. As the system of classifying business size was developed for use within the EU statistical network, SGMs are measured in euros and presented in size ranges, which relate to European size units (ESU). The resulting figures per hectare of crop and per head of livestock are then totaled for the whole farm. Sizes of holdings are defined, for example, in the UK, as:


Publication

Like other agricultural surveys, the results of the Farm Structure Surveys are published for public use. As they are the aggregate of data collection by individual nations statistics agencies, the timeline for data to be shared with the
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is twelve to eighteen months after the survey year. This means that the data is shared later than other censuses of agriculture. The most recent European Union Census of Agriculture data can be found in the 2013 Agriculture, forestry and fishery statistics produced by
Eurostat Eurostat ('European Statistical Office'; DG ESTAT) is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in the Kirchberg, Luxembourg, Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Eurostat's main responsibilities are to provide stati ...
.


See also

*
Common Agricultural Policy The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the agricultural policy of the European Union. It implements a system of agricultural subsidies and other programmes. It was introduced in 1962 and has since then undergone several changes to reduce the ...
*
Agriculture and Fisheries Council The Agriculture and Fisheries Council (AGRIFISH) is one of the configurations of the Council of the European Union and is composed of the agriculture and fisheries ministers of the 27 European Union member states. Its competencies include the Comm ...


References

{{reflist


External links


UK government June Agricultural census

Eurostat Agriculture statistics pages
Agricultural censuses European Union and agriculture