The European Parliament adopted by 562 votes to 49, with 74 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on integrated farm statistics and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1166/2008 and (EU) No 1337/2011.
The European Parliament’s position, adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure, amended the Commission proposal as follows:
Objectives: this Regulation shall establish a framework for European statistics at the level of agricultural holdings and provides for the integration of information on the structure with that on production methods, rural development measures, agro-environmental aspects and other related information.
According to the amended text, the collection of statistical data, in particular concerning the structure of farms, should aim, amongst other objectives, to inform the decision-making process with updated data with a view to future Common Agricultural Policy reforms.
A knowledge base is also required to assess the impact of policies on the female workforce on agricultural holdings.
Coverage: the data required by the proposed Regulation shall cover 98 % of the total utilised agricultural area (excluding kitchen gardens) and 98 % of the livestock units of each Member State.
The amended text stressed that in some Member States the thresholds listed in this Regulation are too high. However, the agricultural holdings below those thresholds are so small that a sample data collection to be carried out once per decade is sufficient to allow the estimation of their structure and the impact on production, resulting in the reduction of costs and burdens while still enabling the design of effective policy action to support and maintain small farming structures.
Among other things, the amendments stressed the following points:
- the need to receive information about the affiliation of an agricultural holding to a group of enterprises, the entities of which are controlled by a parent entity
- the modernisation of data collection modes on agricultural holdings insofar as possible and the use of digital solutions in that regard should be promoted;
- the possibility for Member States in which the periods of fieldwork for the survey reference year 2020 overlap with the work planned for the 10-year population census to bring the farming survey forward a year so as to avoid the heavy burden of conducting two major data collections at the same time;
- the potential to reduce the response burden and costs further reduced by reusing data from the year directly preceding or following the reference year. This would be particularly relevant for aspects where no large changes are expected from one year to the next;
- flexibility and reduction of burden on respondents, NSIs and other national authorities, by allowing Member States to use statistical surveys, administrative records and any other innovative sources, methods or approaches, including scientifically based and well documented methods such as imputation, estimation and modelling;
- the need to take into account aspects such as cost and administrative burdens on agricultural holdings and Member States when the Commission exercises its delegated power;
- the importance of making online access to official statistics as easy and user-friendly as possible.
Report from the Commission: by 31 December 2024, the Commission shall submit a report on the implementation and achievement of the objectives of this Regulation.
Economic aspects of this Regulation should be reviewed for the period post-2020 taking into account the new multiannual financial framework and other relevant changes to Union instruments. Based on that review, the Commission shall consider proposing relevant changes to this Regulation.