Agricultural census 2020 – how to reduce costs and burden? The European Statistical System approach

Abstract

Information on the structure of agriculture is necessary to understand the risks for, among others, food security and the environment. The FAO advises all countries to carry out an agricultural census every 10 years to get a full picture. The European Union (EU) collects data on farm structure for the common agricultural policy (CAP) and other policies, but at more frequent intervals. This paper presents the technical and methodological aspects of the newly modified system for the European agricultural censuses. Under the new set-up, EU countries can reduce the burden on respondents while increasing the availability of statistics for the census 2020. A set of 184 core variables is collected as a census for all farms above common physical thresholds in all countries with the target of covering 98% of each country’s agriculture. For sub-samples of farms, the core variables will be supplemented with variables grouped in three modules. The system allows countries to use multiple sources and methods to obtain data subject to meeting pre-defined quality requirements. The efforts of the European Statistical System (ESS) to allow countries who do not meet the census’s 98% coverage requirements to conduct a sample data collection on the smallest farms and further ways of reducing costs and burden are discussed.