DAFM: Simon Hanrahan, Seán Bell, Grainne Roughan, Wila Bruce, Liam Finnegan, Seamus Barron, Nick Barwise and Michael Hill.
CSO: Joe Treacy, Paul J Crowley, Cathal Doherty, Paul Deane, Viacheslav Voronovich (CSO Agriculture); Anthony Dawson (CSO Agriculture Prices); Reamonn McKeever (CSO Environment); Ciaran Counihan (CSO External Trade); Jim Dalton (CSO Labour Force Survey); Colleen Melwani (CSO Sustainable Development Goals).
Teagasc: Kevin Hanrahan, Brian Moran and Emma Dillon.
UCC: Thia Hennessy
Apologies: Bernard Hyde (EPA), Trevor Donnellan (Teagasc), Cormac Nolan (Bord Bia), Alan Matthews (UCD).
Joe Treacy (CSO) opened the meeting and welcomed the members to this year’s meeting. Joe introduced himself and invited each member to do the same. He spoke about the value of the Agriculture Statistics Liaison Group and the importance of keeping the relationship between the all stakeholders in the group strong. The minutes from the last meeting were adopted.
Paul J Crowley (CSO) continued the introduction by outlining the agenda for the meeting and it was adopted.
Cathal Doherty (CSO) gave a presentation on the developments surrounding Agriculture Surveys. He explained that data from the Farm Structure Survey (FSS) has been sent to Eurostat and is currently progressing through the validation process. National results from the survey will be published on the CSO website on May 23rd, 2018. In addition, there will also be a thematic labour publication later in the summer.
Cathal updated the group on the Integrated Farm Statistics (IFS) regulation. The purpose of the regulation is to provide for the 2020 Census of Agriculture and Farm Structure Surveys in 2023 and 2026. Once IFS is written into law, Eurostat can then deliver the implementing act needed for Census 2020.
The presentation continued with a description of some of the data protection techniques that are employed in the Agriculture Surveys section. Pseudonymisation and data minimisation is performed where possible and all data has been assessed to ensure that it is necessary and proportionate.
Cathal finished the presentation by describing changes to European regional classifications. An amendment to the NUTS classification system applies to data sent to Eurostat, from 1st January 2018.
Joe Treacy thanked Cathal and asked if there were any questions. Kevin Hanrahan (Teagasc) questioned if the FSS data published on the Eurostat website was reliable. Cathal stated that this data was marked provisional and will not be updated until the FSS dataset passes final validation. In the meantime, the national publication on May 23rd will provide the most reliable 2016 FSS results.
There was also a discussion on the Animal Housing and Manure Management module in the IFS regulation. Brian Moran (Teagasc) and Seamus Barron (DAFM) both shared an interest in the information that would need to be collected and it was agreed that documents on this module could be shared with the group.
Paul Deane (CSO) presented the group with an update on some of the developments in Agriculture in the CSO. His presentation focused on the December Livestock Survey and Milk Statistics.
As discussed at the ASLG meeting in 2017 the December Livestock Survey was to be abolished. The DAFM Sheep and Goat Census was used as the main source to estimate sheep totals as required in December 2017. This change of approach has led to a significant reduction in response burden.
Paul continued by outlining the Milk Utilisation project, a project undertaken attempting to improve the compilation of Milk Statistics. The CSO have procured the services of an industry expert who has been tasked with, 1) review of the current methodologies, 2) modification (if necessary) of conversion factors, 3) develop a methodology for making future changes to conversion factors, 4) review of production totals and sources and 5) develop a method for compiling monthly and annual data. This project will lead to improved data quality and potentially a reintroduction of the Milk Supply Balance in the future.
Kevin and Thia both stated that milk powders and infant formula are key on the dairy balance sheet but could prove difficult to obtain accurate and reliable data.
Jim Dalton from Labour Market Analysis in the CSO presented information on the new Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS replaces the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) and the main purpose of the survey is to estimate national labour force across different sectors. Jim stated that new methods include many steps that ensure that best possible estimates will be disseminated.
Adjustments to data have been made due to Census 2016 population revisions as well as due to Non-Response. LFS also has better coding of occupation using NACE classifications.
Some historical adjustments have also been made that impact the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector between Q1 2009 and Q3 2013. These adjustments have resulted in an increase in estimates at each timepoint.
Joe Treacy thanked Jim for the presentation on the new series due to changing from LFS to QNHS.
Kevin was pleased to see that the Agriculture data had been revised between 2009 and 2013.
Liam Finnegan (DAFM) gave a presentation on the National Bioeconomy Policy Statement. The EU Bioeconomy Strategy defines the bioeconomy as the production of renewable biological resources and converting these resources and waste streams into value added products. Liam described the Bioeconomy at a high level and how it applies nationally in Ireland. Ireland shows good potential due to the high proportion of agricultural land, forestry and the number of coastal activities. It is important to align the bioeconomy with CAP and to improve monitoring.
The National Policy Statement was formally published in March 2018. This was after many interactions with key stakeholders, the Action Plan for Jobs and the Realising Our Rural Potential publications. As well as the policy, an implementation group has been set up. The purpose of the group is to bring forward recommendations to develop the bioeconomy further. The policy concentrates on developing the major pillars of the bioeconomy, these pillars are consistent with the EU’s low carbon transition objective.
Ciaran Counihan from External Trade in the CSO gave details of the Trade by Enterprise Characteristics publication for the year 2016. This publication provides information on import and export trade across Irish economic sectors. Ciaran concentrated on Agri-food exports and showed the growth in the agri-food sector, exports of €14.1 billion in 2013 grew to €17.2 billion in 2016. Of this total in 2016, there were 589 SMEs, exporting €2.7 billion of goods. There were 43 large enterprises accounting for the remaining €14.5 billion.
Joe Treacy thanked Ciarán for the information presented stating that this is an important release due to the vast number of PQs that are received on trade with the UK.
Wila Bruce (DAFM) asked for clarification on the CSO definition of Agri-food stating that there appear to be some differences in the NACE categories included between CSO and DAFM. Grainne Roughan (DAFM) asked if there was any information on the port of entry. Ciaran confirmed that with respect to trade, the country of origin and consignment is collected – nothing further. Paul J Crowley can check the CSO transport statistics to see if there is a potential data source. Kevin stated that it would be useful if there was a NUTS breakdown of where imports were coming from, or where exports were going. Wila confirmed that DPER did a Brexit paper using the Census of Industrial Production.
Seán Bell (DAFM) introduced the presentation by mentioning the influence that trade has in evidence based decision making particularly in relation to CAP. The DAFM trade portal is the result of a lot of hard work and is a valuable online tool that can be used by all stakeholders.
Nick Barwise (DAFM) described the information that will be accessible on the trade web portal. The portal will be categorised by all main export commodities with volume of trade across all sectors. Nick stated the importance of market access for meat and that market access for beef is very defined. Many individuals across DAFM have contributed to the information that will be available on the web portal. Work has been underway for a long period of time and the portal will go live in May.
Nick introduced Michael Hill (DAFM) who gave the group a live demonstration of the web portal. The home page of the portal displayed the four sectors, dairy, meat, fisheries and poultry. Each country that we export to can be selected across each of the sectors. Information per industry on each sector is then displayed per country. The portal has been designed to ensure that the webpage will tabularise based on the screen size.
Joe Treacy thanked Nick and Michael for the information provided and demonstration of the web portal.
Kevin agreed that this type of portal would be very valuable and asked if there would be information on CN codes. Nick and Seán stated that for now the portal was going to be kept at a high level and the goal is to get the portal up and running. CN codes may be examined in the future.
Colleen Melwani from the Sustainable Development Goals section in the CSO produced a listing of SDGs. The CSO are working on determining potential data sources for a number of these and would hope to open discussions with the group. Seán stated that the Economic and Planning Division are involved with SDGs and while they may not have data sources would be happy to discuss the list if the CSO SDG section were to reach out.
Wila and the Economic and Planning Division are thankful for the statistics. The trade factsheet and Brexit factsheet are both example of how DAFM use some of the statistics from the CSO.
Kevin spoke about slaughter data and commented that an insight into dairy cows would be interesting. Viacheslav Voronovich (CSO) stated that a large proportion of the data comes from the AIM annual report. He and Kevin agreed that the dynamic of the dairy and suckler herd would be interesting to examine.
Paul J Crowley informed the group of the plans for the remainder of a busy 2018. He thanked the group for their continued cooperation and looked forward to working well in the future. He finished by informing the group that if there were any data needs to please make contact.
Joe Treacy asked the group for their opinions on the ASLG and if it was a useful format and if we needed to collaborate differently. Seán commented that meeting once a year is useful and throughout the year individuals can work bilaterally. To meet more than once may dilute the information that is shared. Kevin agreed stating that an annual meeting is enough and that having an idea of what is coming is very important.
Joe thanked everyone for an informative and productive meeting.
The following are the action points arising from the meeting:
1. CSO to share information on Animal Housing and Manure Management module.
2. CSO and DAFM to examine NACE codes used in Agri-food definition.
3. CSO to examine transport statistics to determine if a source for port of entry for exports exist.
4. CSO and DAFM to discuss list of SDGs and potential data sources.
