PURPOSE: to ensure the systematic production of European statistics on agricultural holdings in the Union in order to guarantee consistency and comparability at EU level.
PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.
BACKGROUND: an evaluation of the European Agricultural Statistics System (EASS) concluded that even if the main users of agricultural statistics are quite satisfied with the level of detail and quality of the agricultural statistics, they are not content with the lack of data on specific items (supply balance sheets, land prices and rents, nutrient flows, data related to environment, and others), and that the system is too rigid, not allowing the rapid introduction of new data collections.
Three main factors underlying the problems being faced in the area of the EASS:
- new and emerging data needs such as changes in world agriculture such as globalisation and climate change and consequent changes in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) not adequately served;
- data collections not sufficiently harmonised and coherent;
- burden of providing data perceived as too high.
Agricultural statistics used at the Union level are taken from a variety of sources: statistical surveys, administrative data, data from farms and other businesses, as well as farm level data in the form of an agricultural census and samples. The current proposal relates to that last source of agricultural statistics data.
This initiative is part of the regulatory fitness and performance programme (REFIT) and is the first step of the Strategy for Agricultural Statistics 2020 and beyond, that aims at streamlining the EASS as a whole and to render the data collection process more efficient and relevant.
IMPACT ASSESSMENT: the preferred option is a two-step integration of agricultural statistics which would safeguard the continuation and modernisation of structural statistics on agriculture. Two new framework regulations would be introduced stepwise: an integrated farm statistics (IFS) regulation and another framework regulation on statistics on agricultural input and output (SAIO).
CONTENT: the proposed Regulation aims to establish a framework for European agricultural statistics at farm level and to provide for integration of the structural information with other information, such as production methods, rural development measures, agro environmental aspects and others.
Data collection: for the purpose of obtaining the data referred to in this Regulation, Member States shall carry out statistical surveys. The proposal allows and promotes the use of new forms of data collection and alternative data sources including administrative data and other sources.
The core data collection for the survey reference year 2020 shall be carried out as a census. The core data collections for the survey reference years 2023 and 2026 may be carried out as sample surveys.
The data must be transmitted within predefined deadlines.
Delegated acts and implementing powers: the Regulation proposed to empower the Commission to adopt delegated acts to amend the core characteristics listed in Annex III (Core data: Information to be provided), and the detailed topics for the modules listed in Annex IV in order to adapt the data collected to future users’ needs; and to meet specific user requirements in ad-hoc surveys.
The Commission should also be empowered to adopt implementing measures on the technical specifications required for the data sets and the quality reporting.
Financial support: the draft regulation includes the provisions for financial support to the Member States for:
- complying with data requirements and developing methodologies aiming at higher quality or lower costs, or both, and the administrative burden of collecting and producing integrated farm statistics;
- the cost of data collections;
- the collection of ad-hoc data.
Repeal: Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 shall be repealed with effect from 1 January 2022 and Regulation (EC) No 1166/2008 shall be repealed with effect from 1 January 2019.
BUDGETARY IMPLICATIONS: the proposal has a financial impact for the years 2019 to 2020 (with possible financial impact extended up to 2028 depending on the next MFF). The total appropriations under the current MFF are estimated at EUR 40 million.
DELEGATED ACTS: the proposal contains provisions empowering the Commission to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.