Food and Agriculture: A Value Chain Analysis

Classifying Activities and Products

This publication groups firms by activity (also referred to as industry) using the EU’s Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE) Rev. 2 grouping. Products are grouped using the EU’s Statistical Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) Rev. 2.1 grouping. CPA codes are identical to NACE codes up to the two-digit level. For example, NACE 01 refers to Crop and animal production, hunting and related service activities while CPA 01 refers to Products of agriculture, hunting and related services. NACE codes are also very similar to CPA at the three-digit level.

Agriculture Data

Output of agriculture is estimated at basic prices (i.e. not including the value of product taxes, product subsidies and trade margins that are levied on products). The data on Irish agricultural output is consistent with the CSO’s Output, Input and Income in Agriculture publication. The detailed data on agricultural output by product for Ireland and other EU countries is taken from the Eurostat data on Economic accounts for agriculture. The product classifications in this Eurostat publication are matched to CPA codes at the most detailed level possible and aggregated to the three-digit level. The difference between agricultural output and the output in the agricultural industry is non-agricultural output by the agricultural industry.

Intermediate consumption of agricultural products is estimated at purchasers’ prices (i.e. including the value of product taxes, product subsidies and trade margins). The data on intermediate consumption by the agricultural industry for agricultural outputs is taken from the CSO Output, Input and Income in Agriculture publication. The product classification of intermediate consumption by product is mapped from the agriculture publication to CPA codes at the most detailed level. Further product detail is estimated using sources used in creating the CSO Supply and Use publication. Some caution should be taken with the product detail on intermediate consumption, particularly for the smallest product shares.

Data for the sequence of accounts comes from the Institutional Sector Accounts.

Food and Beverage Data

Output of food and drink is estimated at basic prices. The CSO Census of Industrial Production (CIP) provides estimates of firm-level output. We use a firm level identifier from our Business Register to establish whether a firm is Irish owned or not. The data on the output of food and beverage products comes from many sources. The CSO’s PRODCOM - Irish Industrial Production by Sector publication indicates the value of food and beverage production by eight-digit CPA code for manufacturing firms. Secondly, we assume that certain wholesale and retail firms are food producers (e.g. that NACE 4724 retail bakeries produce baked goods classified in CPA 107). This data is taken from the Annual Service Inquiry (ASI). We also use goods export data for manufacturing firms to establish food output by three-digit product. Where there is no other information available, we assume that the product associated with a firm’s NACE code is the only product that the firm produces. We also use data from the CSO Business Expenditure on Research and Development (BERD) survey and the CSO Balance of Payments data to ensure that R&D output and services output are not being misclassified as output of food or drink.

Intermediate consumption of food and drink is estimated at purchasers’ prices. The data on food and beverage intermediate consumption is taken from the CIP and is adjusted to reconcile with the GVA estimates in the National Accounts. The data on the food industry’s intermediate consumption of agricultural products at the three-digit level is done as follows. We first calculate Intermediate consumption of agriculture in the economy at the three-digit level. This is done by calculating total supply of agriculture at the three-digit product level and subtracting all components of total use from this except intermediate consumption. The residual is assumed to be intermediate consumption. This data is allocated using a combination of the two-digit NACE-CPA shares of intermediate consumption found in the Use table in the Supply and Use 2017 publication, a four digit NACE to CPA mapping of what intermediate consumption combinations are possible (e.g. a NACE 1011 meat factory is certain to use CPA 014 Live animals and animal products but unlikely to use CPA011 non-perennial crops) and four-digit NACE shares of two-digit NACE intermediate consumption. The remaining product allocation at the two-digit level is based on the product allocation of the 2017 Use table, adjusting for known differences between foreign and domestic patterns of intermediate consumption. Users should treat the product allocation of intermediate consumption of non-agricultural products with caution.

Export and Import Data

Exports are estimated at purchasers’ prices. However, there is little difference between exports at purchasers’ prices and exports at basic prices in practice. Imports are estimated at basic prices. Exports and imports of agriculture and food come from the CSO External Trade division, which in turn relies on data provided by the Revenue Commissioners. We only use data where it has been possible to match the data to enterprise codes. This has the effect of understating exports and imports of the products concerned by a small amount. The data is provided to us in the Combined Nomenclature (CN) product classification. We map this data to CPA product codes.

Household Consumption

Household consumption data is estimated at purchasers’ prices. Household consumption of agriculture, food and drink is sourced from the CSO National Accounts data. This data is classified using a CSO classification system that is similar to Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP). We map this data to CPA codes at the most detailed level possible and aggregate the data to the three-digit CPA level.

The estimates of imports of agriculture, food and drink for household consumption are in basic prices. The estimates do not include imported goods for intermediate consumption that are used to produce goods for household consumption in Ireland. The values for imported goods for household consumption were calculated by identifying imports by retail firms and many wholesale firms and using the United Nations Broad Economic Categories classification system (which is mapped on using the six-digit Harmonised System product codes) to establish whether a product is likely to be a retail product. Users should bear in mind that this methodology only produces an approximation.

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