Farm Structure Survey 2016

Introduction

This report presents the results from the Farm Structure Survey 2016 conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in June 2016. This work was undertaken within the framework of the statistical programme of the European Union, and in particular, Regulation (EC) No 1166/2008 ¹. Similar Surveys were conducted in all EU member states during 2015/2016 in order to collect comparable statistics across the European Union.

Data collection

For the Farm Structure Survey 2016, the register of agricultural holdings used to contact farmers was constructed by amalgamating the CSO intercensal Agriculture Register and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's (DAFM) 2015 Corporate Client System.

Farm Structure Survey questionnaires were sent to 55,909 farmers in the week preceding the reference date of 1st June 2016 and up to four reminders were issued in order to maximise the overall response rate.

In an effort to reduce the response burden on farmers, all questions relating to cattle, cereals and potatoes were eliminated from the June 2016 Farm Structure questionnaire as sufficient data was found to be available from existing administrative data sources from DAFM. Data on cereals and potatoes were obtained from DAFM’s Single Payment Scheme (Council Regulation No 1782/2003) while all data on cattle was obtained from DAFM’s Animal Identification and Movement system (Council Regulation No 1760/2000).

Sample Selection

Farms were selected using data on the CSO Agricultural Register. The selection process comprised of 5 stages. There were a number of stages for whom we wanted to have a 100% sample. Farms selected for stage 1 and 2 were defined because of their specialist nature and their relatively small population. Sheep farms were selected in stage 3, as we do not have an administrative data source for sheep and a matched sample is required annually for which we have a minimum sample size. Stage 4 included all new births. The remainder of the sample was selected in stage 5.

The specific order of selection was as follows:

1. All Poultry farms (farms with greater than or equal to 100 birds),
2. All Mushroom farms
3. Sheep farms, we generated a matched sample with the June 2015 survey, which resulted in 5,426 sheep farms.
4. Stratum 4 consisted of all new births according to administrative files. Once the births were checked and duplicates identified, the final number of births was 5,273.
5. Stratum 1-4 initially resulted in 11,229 units selected into the sample. In order to generate a final sample of approximately 56,000, 45,000 units needed to be selected from the remaining 96,409 units on the sampling frame that were not included in stratum 1-4 . These units were selected based on NUTS3 region and farm size and resulted in 49 additional strata.

The final sample was checked for duplicates or inactivity on the Agricultural Register, which resulted in dropping 281 units from the sample. This resulted in a final sample of 55,909.

Estimation of the total number of farm holdings

The total number of active farms in June 2016 was estimated to be 137,500. This figure was estimated by combining data from the FSS survey and various administrative sources to create a full dataset of active farms in Ireland.

Comparability with Census 2010 and Farm Structure Survey 2013

In Census 2010 every farm received a questionnaire and their results were combined with administrative sources. This differs somewhat from the methodology described above, which could impact on the comparability of some data. In the Farm Structure Survey 2013, the methodology is very similar to the methodology described above. Broadly speaking, results from Census 2010, FSS 2013 and FSS 2016 are comparable. 

 ¹ OJ No. L321, 1.12.2008, p.14  http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32008R1166

Farm/holding

An "agricultural holding" or "holding" means a single unit, both technically and economically, which has a single management and which undertakes agricultural activities listed below within the economic territory of the European Union, either as its primary or secondary activity:

• growing of non-perennial crops
• growing of perennial crops
• plant propagation
• animal production
• mixed farming
• support activities to agriculture and post-harvest crop activities

Agricultural Area Utilised

The Agricultural Area Utilised (AAU) is the combined area under crops, silage, hay, pasture and rough grazing land in use (including fallow land). Areas under roads, tracks, water, bog, marsh, rocks, unused rough grazing land, buildings etc. are excluded.

Farm Type

For analytical purposes, farms are classified in this report as one of eight farm types. These types represent the primary areas of specialisation in Irish Farming.  They are derived from groupings applied to a detailed EU farm typology classification system ¹ and are based on the relative economic importance of the various lines of agricultural activity carried out on each farm.  These types are classified as Specialist Tillage, Specialist Dairying, Specialist Beef Production, Specialist Sheep, Mixed Grazing Livestock, Mixed Crops & Livestock, Mixed Field Crops ² and Other ³.

Standard Output (SO)

The Standard Output (SO) of an agricultural product is defined as the average monetary value of the agricultural output at farm-gate prices. SO is not a measure of farm income. It does not take into account costs, direct payments (such as the Single Farm Payment), value added tax or taxes on products. This has replaced the concept of Standard Gross Margin (SGM) which was previously used to measure the economic size of a farm. Therefore, direct comparisons cannot be made between the economic size of farms in this report and the economic size of farms published for earlier years.

Economic Size

The economic size of the holding is measured as the total standard output of the holding expressed in euro. Holdings are classified by fourteen size classes which are set out in Annex II to Commission Regulation (EC) no 1242/2008. Some of these size classes have been grouped together here and therefore, only eight size classes are presented in this report.

Family Farms

These are farms which are operated as family based enterprises.

Commercial Farms

These are farms registered as companies which paid all their workers as employees (including management) or farms connected with institutions (e.g. schools, colleges, religious communities, prisons etc.). All persons working on commercial farms are classified as regular non-family workers.

Farm Holder

The legal owner of a family farm.

Farm Manager

The person responsible for the day to day running of the farm. On 97.0% of Irish farms, the farm manager was also found to be the holder.

Non-Regular Labour Input

This refers to the labour supplied by those not employed on a regular basis such as casual workers, agricultural contractors and farm relief services.

Annual Work Unit (AWU)

The labour input of each person who worked on the farm was measured in terms of AWUs with one AWU being defined as 1800 hours or more of labour per person per annum.

Significance of Farmwork

This categorises the relative importance of farmwork as an occupation to the farm holder.

Sole occupation: If an individual engaged in farmwork had no other occupation from which an income was earned, then farmwork was the sole occupation.

Major occupation: If farmwork took up the greater part of a worker’s time, it was regarded as a major occupation.

Subsidiary occupation: If the time spent on gainful non-farming activity exceeded that spent on farmwork then farmwork was regarded as a subsidiary occupation. Gainful non-farming activity includes paid farmwork on other farms and all other non-farming activities from which an income was obtained, whether undertaken on or off the farm.

 ¹ Commission Regulation (EC) No 1242/2008 of 08 December 2008 establishing a Community typology for agricultural holdings (Official Journal of the European Communities No L 335/3 of 13 December 2008) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32008R1242

² This group includes farms growing various crops (including silage, hay, pasture or rough grazing) but with no dominant crop type.

³ This group includes farms specializing in horticulture, fruit, pig or poultry production, mixed crops, mixed livestock and a small number of unclassified farms.

Introduction

The EU Farm Typology Classification System was developed in order to identify and classify relatively homogeneous groups of farms by reference to two economic characteristics of the farm, its type of activity and its economic size. Both of these characteristics are determined by the application of Standard Output (SO) coefficients, estimated regionally per hectare of crop or per animal, to the individual farm’s crop and livestock activities. In this way, all the farm’s activities can be measured and compared on a standardised basis (i.e. SO). The classification system is used for the periodic Censuses and Farm Structure Surveys, the current series of which are conducted under Council Regulation (EU) No 1166/2008 ¹, as well as the ongoing Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) surveys. A complete description of the Farm Typology system is given in Commission Regulation (EC) no 1242/2008 ².

Standard Output (SO)

The Standard Output (SO) of an agricultural product is defined as the average monetary value of the agricultural output at farm-gate prices. The SO does not take into account costs, direct payments, value added tax or taxes on products. The SO coefficient for each product is determined on the basis of a standard 12-month production period and is calculated as a regional average within each member state. The two regions in Ireland are Southern-Eastern (SE) and Border, Midland, Western (BMW). The SOs used in the case of Farm Structure Survey, were referenced to ‘2013’ (i.e., calculated as the 5-year average of 2011-2015 SOs) and the Irish coefficients are given in Table I below. These values will be updated to take account of economic trends and the frequency of the update is linked to the years in which farm structure surveys are carried out. The Farm Structure Survey will next take place as a Census in June 2020.