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Present:
Thia Hennssy - (Teagasc) Chair
Bernard Hyde - (EPA)
Paul J. Crowley - (CSO)
Susan O’Connor - (CSO)
Hilda McCarthy - (CSO)
Kathryn Foskin - (CSO)
Lorcan O’Broin - (CSO)
Ciaran Counihan - (CSO)
Viacheslav Voronovich - (CSO)
Patricia Torpey - (DAFM)
Brian A Kennedy - (DAFM)
Graham Neilan - (DAFM)
Brian Moran - (Teagasc)
Kevin Hanrahan - (Teagasc)
Peter Duggan - (Bord Bia)
Gerry Looby - (UCD)
Derry Dillon - (Macra na Feirme)
Apologies:
Kieran Walsh
Rowena Dwyer
Jane Brogan
Ann Derwin
James Quirke.
Thia Hennessy opened the meeting and welcomed the group.
As some were attending for the first time, all members of the group briefly introduced themselves.
The agenda and minutes were agreed.
Paul J. Crowley presented this item highlighting the recent organisational changes within the CSO and particularly within the Agriculture Division since the group last met. Kieran Walsh has replaced Steve MacFeely as Director of Business Statistics. Fiona O’Callaghan has moved out of the Agriculture Division (to Statistical Methodology & Development) and her work with administrative data has been taken over by Hilda McCarthy. Kathryn Foskin has recently joined the Agriculture Division and has responsibility for Farm Structure Survey 2013. Viacheslav Voronovich has replaced Andrew Murray in Agriculture Accounts. Viacheslav has also taken on responsibility for any work on Agri-environmental Indicators. While Susan O’Connor has responsibility for Agriculture Prices and Land Prices, this work will now form part of the Prices Division.
Paul presented details of the CSO Agricultural Work Programme for 2013-2014 which includes FSS2013, planning for FSS2016, rebasing agricultural price indices, recommencing the land price series, meeting the ever increasing demand for agri-environmental data as well as meeting ongoing national and European requirements for agricultural data.
The EU draft work programme for 2014 is currently being discussed and involves a review of the needs of data users. Discussions are focused on response burden and ‘rationalisation, simplification and optimisation of the data collection and validation processes and efficient use of existing data resources, especially administrative data’.
Some of the data needs will be accommodated within the FSS2016 list of variables which will be finalised in the coming months. DG AGRI are also seeking additional data on milk and eggs as well as production and consumption data on a range of products including wheat, barley, sugar, soybean, rice, maize. There will be an increased requirement for agri-environmental data at a European level while certain supply balances have been identified as a negative priority and there is no longer a requirement to produce these Supply Balances.
At a recent CPSA meeting in Eurostat, Ireland also stressed the need for a medium term (2-3 year) strategy to bridge the gap between the individual annual programmes and the 5 year community statistical programme (2013-2017).
Paul presented further detail on Farm Structure Survey 2013 which is currently underway with a reference date of June 1st 2013. Approximately 55,000 questionnaires were issued with a target response rate of 75%. FSS2013 data will be transmitted to Eurostat during September 2014 and published during December 2014.
Discussions are being held to finalise the variables to be collected in FSS2016. The current draft proposes removing machinery & equipment and christmas trees; including NUTS3, LFA indicators and additional irrigation variables as well as modifying the list of characteristics around Other Gainful Activities and Rural Development.
EPA questioned the rationale behind removal of machinery/equipment variables. CSO explained that FSS regulation already collects a large number of variables and to collect detailed machinery data that would be of value to users would require a very comprehensive section on machinery. Discussions at a European level had identified machinery as a lower priority. While at a national level, the CSO had accommodated additional machinery data in FSS2013, this could not be developed further in future years especially in the context of increased demand for other variables.
EPA suggested that some consultation with the members of the group on designing future FSS questionnaires might be useful, particularly as more agri-environmental data will be required. CSO agreed with this proposal.
Teagasc inquired if there were data gaps in the cattle data series as the AIM database did not provide a breakdown of female bovines intended for slaughter/breeding. CSO indicated that this was outstanding and after requests from Eurostat and Commission to address this, a methodology had been designed to provide a breakdown for these categories. This data had been submitted to Eurostat at the end of May 2013. Teagasc expects to see this come through on the Eurostat database in the coming weeks.
This item covered the availability of data from Census of Agriculture (COA) 2010 and Land Prices & Rents.
Hilda McCarthy summarised the various disseminations of COA2010 data including an Agricultural Labour Input release (Oct 2012), the main COA publication in December 2010 and a new interactive mapping tool, AGRIMAP, which allows the users to navigate to an Electoral District (ED) of interest and download selected variables for that ED. It is expected that this resource will be enhanced in the coming months to include data for COA2000 and COA1991 as well as a facility to allow a user download multiple EDs at a time.
Hilda explained that a Remote Access Policy is currently being developed by CSO to facilitate the needs of researchers and other data users. The group will be kept informed of developments on this.
Susan O’Connor presented on Land Prices & Rents data. The current Eurostat requirement for data on land prices and rents is based on a gentlemen’s agreement and data for 2013 is to be sent to Eurostat by September 2014. Eurostat have suggested three possible data sources. These include:
(i) direct observation of land prices
(ii) data collection via network of experts
(iii) use of administrative data
CSO proposes using a combination of options (ii) & (iii) as the e-stamping file is available from Revenue. CSO are about to commence analysis of this file for the purpose of compiling land price data. It is expected that data for 2013 will be available after September 2014. Though yet to be investigated, it may be possible to produce a series back to 2010.
Eurostat have indicated that the agricultural land price should represent the average purchase price of both arable land and permanent grassland in a calendar year. There was some discussion around these two categories and whether or not there would be a price differential here as a distinction is not made between arable land and permanent grassland in the available data file. Teagasc suggested that if the LPIS (Land Parcel Identification System) number was available for the plot of land, it may be possible to identify the use of that piece of land in the DAFM Single Payment System and thereby determine if it was maintained as grassland or arable land. It is likely that the differential between arable and permanent grassland might be more pronounced in other European countries and hence the need for Eurostat to collect both.
Teagasc also inquired if a minimum size threshold would be applied for producing results. CSO stated a decision would be made on this after an initial analysis of the data.
Thia summarised how the NFS had developed over the last 40 years since joining the EU. The NFS collects data required as part of the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The data is collected across a stratified random sample of farms and the sample is selected in conjunction with CSO. In recent years, Teagasc have increased the minimum economic farm size and this has resulted in a reduced sample size of approximately 900 farms (previously 1,200). However, the representativeness of farms, in terms of output, has only reduced from 95% to 93%.
Teagasc demonstrated how all NFS data had been brought together on the Teagasc website for users to easily access several years data at one time.
http://www.teagasc.ie/nfs/FilterResults.aspx
Teagasc have introduced surveys specific to Dairy Farms and thus have almost full coverage of this sector. Funding has also been received to collect data on sustainability indicators. This was collected in 2012 and is currently being analysed.
CSO explained that many of NFS results are used to estimate intermediate consumption (IC) for farms in the Agriculture Accounts series. However, the exclusion of small farms from the NFS sample poses difficulties for CSO in estimating IC on these farms. The farms represented in the NFS, however, continue to cover over 93% of standard output.
Kevin provided a summary of CAP negotiations to date and explained that negotiations are currently at the Trilogue stage and this process would continue until the end of June 2013. CAP is made up of two pillars of expenditure with Pillar 1 covering Direct Payments and Common Market Organisation and Pillar 2 covering Rural Development measures and horizontal measures. Kevin summarised the potential impact of the reforms on different farm systems based on what had been agreed to date.
It is vital for CSO that the IACS/SPS continues to provide comprehensive data for statistical purposes. CSO asked if there would be a possibility of any farm losing 100% of their payment or farms with no previous entitlements receiving payments for the first time as this would affect farms in or out of the SPS database. Kevin confirmed this is possible but likely to affect only a very small number of holdings.
Teagasc (KH) inquired about the feasibility of getting price data across the supply chain of agricultural products. The agricultural price index provides farm-gate price for outputs but there is a data gap in trying to determine what proportion of the final retail price is received by intermediaries such as processors, wholesalers, distributors etc.
Peter Duggan inquired about the work on the Dairy Carbon footprint and the Dairy Carbon navigator. The dairy carbon footprint is an attempt to replicate Glanbia measurements on over 250 dairy farms while the Carbon navigator is an advisory tool for farmers to measure and improve carbon footprint.
Peter Duggan inquired about possible duplication of work being undertaken by Teagasc in terms of carbon foot-printing in the dairy sector.
Peter Duggan stated that Bord Bia are working in conjunction with Teagasc (Moorepark) to roll out the 'Dairy Carbon Navigator' similar to the 'Beef Carbon Navigator', which has the ability to measure around 75% of national beef output.
Peter Duggan inquired why it was necessary for Teagasc (Economic Division) to survey (National Farm Survey) 200 to 250 farms, considering that Bord Bia is finalising the Dairy quality assurance scheme that will include a carbon foot-printing element that will capture a significant portion of the dairy industry, unlike the 200-250 surveys being conducted by Teagasc.
Hilda explained that the group would most likely meet again in mid-2014 and welcomed proposals for agenda items for the next meeting. It was noted that Alan Renwick would attend future meetings for UCD and Gerry Looby was thanked for his participation.
This closed the meeting.