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.
LEGISLATIVE ACT: Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 of the European Parliament and of the Council on integrated farm statistics and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1166/2008 and (EU) No 1337/2011).
CONTENT: the new Regulation establishes 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.
The Regulation addresses the weaknesses identified in the evaluation of the European Agricultural Statistics System (EASS) by simplifying and modernising the collection of statistics within a single framework and allowing more flexibility for the rapid introduction of new data collections.
The Regulation urged 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 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.
Member States shall collect and provide the core structural data (‘core data’) for the reference years 2020, 2023 and 2026, as listed in Annex III. The core data collection for the reference year 2020 shall be carried out as a census.
The core data collections for the reference years 2023 and 2026 may be carried out on samples.
In that case, Member States shall ensure that the weighted results are statistically representative of agricultural holdings within each region and are designed to meet the precision requirements set out in Annex V.
The Regulation provides for 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 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 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.
Financial envelope: the Union financial envelope for the implementation of the programme of data collections for the reference year 2020, including the appropriations necessary for the management, maintenance and development of the database systems used within the Commission to process the data supplied by the Member States under this Regulation, shall be EUR 40 million for the period 2018-2020, covered by the MFF 2014-2020.
The Commission may adopt delegated acts in order to take into account emerging data needs mainly stemming from recent developments in agriculture, revised legislation and changing policy priorities.
ENTRY INTO FORCE: 27.8.2018. Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 is repealed with effect from 1 January 2022. Regulation (EC) No 1166/2008 is repealed with effect from 1 January 2019.