Farm Structure Survey
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Farm Structure Surveys (French: L’enquête sur la structure des exploitations agricoles), also known as the Survey on the Structure of Agricultural Holdings, are the methodological basis for censuses of agricultural operations throughout the European Union. The survey itself is used as the basis of an decennial European Union-wide census of agriculture as well as for sample surveys conducted between these years.
Overview
At present, the Farm Structure Surveys are legislated through Regulation 1166/2008 of the European Parliament. Regulation 1166/2008 legislates both the decennial census of agriculture as well as follow-up surveys in 2013 and 2016.
The focus on these standards is to provide “comparable data on agricultural activities, at the appropriate geographical level, and covering the whole Community” for the purposes of informing the Common Agricultural Policy within the European Union and agricultural policy within individual states.
The census of agriculture is not operated concurrently to censuses of population throughout the European Union.
Methodology
While the individual methodology of the Farm Structure Survey varies country to country, the focus is on observing each individual “agricultural holding” and their characteristics, including land, livestock, and labour force characteristics as well as rural development measures.
This agricultural holding, “a technical-economic unit, under single management, engaged in agricultural production” is the base unit of observation in the Farm Structure Surveys. Before 2007 this was defined as one hectare of “utilized agricultural area,” but since has become flexible, allowing individual countries to exclude only the smallest agricultural holdings which contribute 2% or less to total Utilized agricultural area or farm livestock units. Beyond this, specific physical thresholds are also given for inclusion:
Utilised agricultural area (arable land, kitchen gardens, permanent grassland, permanent crops): 5 hectares
Permanent outdoor crops (fruit, berry, citrus and olive plantations, vineyards and nurseries): 1 hectare
Other intensive production:
Fresh vegetables, melons and strawberries, which are outdoors or under low (not accessible) protective cover: 0.5 hectares
Tobacco: 0.5 hectares
Hops: 0.5 hectares
Cotton: 0.5 hectares
Crops under glass or other (accessible) protective cover:
Fresh vegetables, melons and strawberries: 0.1 hectares
Flowers and ornamental plants (excluding nurseries): 0.1 hectares
Bovine animals (all): 10 heads
Pigs (all): 50 heads
Breeding sows: 10 heads
Sheep (all): 20 heads
Goats (all): 20 heads
Poultry (all): 1 000 heads
As the thresholds have changed varyingly from country to country, this complicates the direct comparability of findings between years and between countries, alongside to the varying agricultural identities and cultures which exist within the European Union.
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