Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E1: Agriculture and fisheries

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• Labour productivity indicators by country, type of farm, size of farm and sex of manager
• Land productivity indicators by country, type of farm, size of farm and sex of manager

Productivity indicators are disseminated by using the following classifications:

• Type of farm. The farm typology means a uniform classification of the holdings based on their type of farming and their economic size. Both are determined on the basis of the  standard output (SO) which is calculated for each crop and animal. The farm type is determined by the relative contribution of the different productions to the standard output of the holding. Detailed description of the classification is available at: Glossary:Farm typology - Statistics Explained (europa.eu)
  
  For the productivity indicators the highest level of classification is used, where the farms are classified in three different groups:
  
• CR – CROP -crop specialist (FT1 + FT2 + FT3 + FT6)
• LS – LIVESTOCK -livestock specialist (FT4 + FT5 + FT7)
• OTH – OTHER – mixed-farming holding (FT8 + FT9)

• Size of farm. Farms are classified into two classes:
  
  • SMALL  - Small farms. Include small-scale food producers, according to the definition proposed by FAO, using a combination of two criteria, namely the physical size of the food producer, as expressed by the amount of operated land and number of livestock heads in production, and the economic size of the food producer, as expressed by its revenues. In practice, the threshold, which defines the small-scale producers, is determined through the following steps:
    • Sort the micro dataset inside the country according to the Utilised Agriculture Area (UAA) and calculate weighted cumulative value of variable UAA (CUM_UAA) for each unit.
    • Sort the micro dataset inside the country according to the Livestock Unit (LSU) and calculate weighted cumulative value of variable LSU (CUM_ LSU) for each unit.
    • Sort the micro dataset inside the country according to the Standard Output (SO) and calculate weighted cumulative value of variable SO (CUM_ SO) for each unit.
    • Calculate country totals for variables UAA, LSU, SO and denote them as UAA_TOT, LSU_TOT and SO_TOT respectively.
    • Calculate SO_XR_PPP= SO *XR/PPP, where XR is exchange rate and PPP is purchase power parity for a specific country.
    • Farm is considered as small-scale producer if one of the following criteria is fulfilled:
      • Data on Utilised Agriculture Area fall in the first two quintiles of the country distribution (CUM_UAA/UAA_TOT<=0.4)
      • Data on Livestock Unit fall in the first two quintiles of the country distribution (CUM_LSU/LSU_TOT<=0.4)
      • Data on Standard Output fall in the first two quintiles of the country distribution (CUM_SO/SO_TOT<=0.4)
      • An additional absolute cap is applied, to exclude producers earning a revenue higher than 34 387 Purchasing Power Parity Dollars per year (SO_PPP <=34387)
        
        Some more details can be found at: Methodology for computing and monitoring the Sustainable Development Goal Indicators 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 (fao.org)
        
        
  • LARGE - Large farms. Agriculture holdings which are not classified to the group of small-scale producers are considered as large farms.

• Sex of manager. Determined on the basis of the reported variable.
  • Male
  • Female

Indicators cover agricultural holdings undertaking agricultural activities as listed in item 3.5 below and meeting the minimum coverage requirements (thresholds) as listed in item 3.6 below.

As described in the METHODOLOGY FOR COMPUTING AND MONITORING THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL INDICATORS 2.3.1 AND 2.3.2, productivity measures the amount of output produced by an economic unit (country, industry, sector, farm or other economic operators) given a set of resources and inputs. Productivity can be measured for a single economic entity, such as the farm or commodity, a group of farms, at any geographical scale depending on the purpose of the inquiry.

The statistical unit is the agricultural holding.

For 2020, only “main frame data” are used for the calculation of the indicators. Main frame data consist of  agricultural holdings that meet at least one of the physical thresholds set in Annex II of Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 with regard to the size of agricultural land or the number of livestock units.

For years before 2020, the physical thresholds from Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 were applied to FSS survey data in order to define the statistical population.

Common land agricultural units were excluded from the statistical population for calculation of productivity indicators. 

Data are presented for all EU Member States.

Productivity indicators were calculated from year 2010 on, so they cover the reference years, for which FSS/IFS surveys were carried out: 2010, 2013, 2016, 2020.

Not applicable.

See general Eurostat metadata for Farm structure: Farm structure (ef) (europa.eu).

Not applicable.

See general Eurostat metadata for Farm structure: Farm structure (ef) (europa.eu).

Productivity indicators are ratios of two sums. In the statistical disclosure control procedure, sums in numerator and denominator are treated separately first.

To see how the confidentiality of sums (totals) is treated in Farm structure surveys, see general Eurostat metadata for Farm structure: Farm structure (ef) (europa.eu).

Indicator is considered confidential if the sum in the numerator or the sum in the denominator is determined to be confidential.

A confidential value is suppressed and replaced with ":c".

As for the other IFS and FSS statistics, there is no fixed release deadline. Only transmission deadlines are set in legislation.

Eurostat's release calendar is available at: Release calendar - Eurostat (europa.eu). 

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice,  Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see principle 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users

Not applicable.

Only disseminated in online database (see 10.3).

Productivity indicators are disseminated at website of Eurostat. They are published under nodes: “Agriculture, forestry and fisheries” →”Agriculture (agr)” → "Farm structure(ef)" → “Main farm indicators by NUTS2 regions (ef_mainfarm)” → “Land and Labour productivity of agriculture holdings by sex of farm manager and type and size of the farm (ef_m_pry).

See general Eurostat metadata for Farm structure: Farm structure (ef) (europa.eu).

Not applicable.

Descriptive text  to methodological documents are available :

• SDG indicators
• Purchasing power_parities

Not available.

Quality of the indicators is assured by systematic data validation and statistical process control, which is carried out first on national level (see the National quality reports) and also at Eurostat (see section 18.4). 

Data, which are used for calculation of productivity indicators), are collected from reliable sources applying high standards regarding the methodology and ensuring a high degree of comparability.

 The national methodological reports (quality reports), sent by the countries for each survey, comprise information on each of the quality aspects defined by Eurostat.

Originally requested by FAO, with the publication in the online database, these data are available to the general public.

There is no information on user satisfaction for this specific data.

Productivity indicators are disseminated for EU member states. The indicators are not disseminated for Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway because labor force data for these countries are not available for all the disseminated years.

Based on the estimated standard errors, the accuracy of the indicators is generally very high. There are some table cells, mostly those with a small number of contributing units, where, according to the standard error, the estimated indicator is either unreliable (the value is suppressed) or less reliable (the value is flagged with a 'w' warning).

See the sub-categories below.

See the sub-categories below.

Not applicable.

By limiting the calculation of the indicators only on main frame data, geographical comparability is conceptually ensured. Issues with geographical comparability can now arise only from differences in the implementation of surveys in different countries.

See the sub-categories below.

Not available.

Not available. 

The general Eurostat revision policy applies.

Data are not revised.

According to the IFS data collection organization, data from a core data set and labour force module are used for the calculation of the indicators. Additionally, the following external sources are used:

• Purchasing power parity (PPP) rates were taken from the OECD database, available at Conversion rates - Purchasing power parities (PPP) - OECD Data
• Exchange rates in euro were taken from this website (STATINFO = Average UNIT = National currency)
• Working days per year, collected from the national quality reports

The agricultural census is conducted every 10 years.  The decennial agricultural census is complemented by sample or census-based data collections organised every 3-4 years in-between.

The methods used to collect the data vary in countries depending on national practices.

For the totals in enumerator and denominator we checked:

• internal consistency between fields (validation rules)
• consistency with aggregates in other EF tables
• applicability of precision requirements
• data distribution, with the focus on outlying values

For the ratio (index) we checked consistency of time series.

The aggregation was carried out by taking into account formulas, provided in section 3.4. It has to be noted that for in the case of Labour productivity, different weights were used for calculation of sums in numerator and denominator. In numerator the weight from core module (EXT_CORE) was used, while in denominator weight from labour force module (EXT_LAFO).  

Not applicable.