Farm Structure Survey 2023

Purpose of the Farm Structure Survey

This report presents the results from the Farm Structure Survey 2023 conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in June 2023. This work was undertaken within the framework of the statistical programme of the European Union and Regulation (EU) No. 2018/1091. Similar surveys were conducted in all EU member states during 2022/2023 to collect comparable statistics across the EU.

Data collection

For the Farm Structure Survey 2023, the register of agricultural holdings used to contact farmers was constructed by amalgamating the CSO intercensal Agriculture Register and the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine's (DAFM) 2022 Corporate Client System.

Farm Structure Survey questionnaires were sent to 34,988 farmers in the week preceding the reference date of 1st June 2023 and up to three reminders were issued in order to maximise the overall response rate.

In an effort to reduce the response burden on farmers, all questions relating to cattle, cereals and potatoes were eliminated from the June 2023 Farm Structure questionnaire as sufficient data was found to be available from existing administrative data sources from DAFM. Data on cereals and potatoes were obtained from DAFM’s Single Payment Scheme (Council Regulation No 1782/2003) while all data on cattle was obtained from DAFM’s Animal Identification and Movement system (Council Regulation No 1760/2000).

Sample Selection

Farms were selected using data on the CSO Agricultural Register. The CSO agriculture register is updated annually based on information provided in several administrative sources. These administrative sources are provided by the Department of Agriculture and include the Corporate Client System (CSS), basic income for support and sustainability (BISS), pig register, poultry register, animal identification and movement (AIM) and the sheep census. Simple stratified random sample was implemented. The sample was stratified by nuts3 region and farm size, resulting in 48 strata. The final sample was checked for duplicates or inactivity. This resulted in a final sample of 34,988.

Estimation of the total number of farm holdings

The total number of active farms in June 2023 was estimated to be 133,174. This figure was estimated by combining data from the FSS survey and various administrative sources to create a full dataset of active farms in Ireland.

Comparability with Census 2020 and Farm Structure Survey 2016

In Census 2020 every farm received a questionnaire, and their results were combined with administrative sources. This differs somewhat from the methodology described above, which could impact on the comparability of some data. In the Farm Structure Survey 2016, the methodology is very similar to the methodology described above. Broadly speaking, results from Census 2020, FSS 2016 and FSS 2023 are comparable. 

¹ OJ No. L321, 1.12.2008, p.14  https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2018/1091/oj

Definitions

Farm/holding

An "agricultural holding" or "holding" means a single unit, both technically and economically, which has a single management and which undertakes agricultural activities listed below within the economic territory of the European Union, either as its primary or secondary activity:

• growing of non-perennial crops
• growing of perennial crops
• plant propagation
• animal production
• mixed farming
• support activities to agriculture and post-harvest crop activities

Utilised Agricultural Area 

The Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA) is the combined area under crops, silage, hay, pasture and rough grazing land in use (including fallow land). Areas under roads, tracks, water, bog, marsh, rocks, unused rough grazing land, buildings etc. are excluded.

Farm Type

For analytical purposes, farms are classified in this report as one of eight farm types. These types represent the primary areas of specialisation in Irish Farming.  They are derived from groupings applied to a detailed EU farm typology classification system ¹ and are based on the relative economic importance of the various lines of agricultural activity carried out on each farm.  These types are classified as Specialist Tillage, Specialist Dairying, Specialist Beef Production, Specialist Sheep, Mixed Grazing Livestock, Mixed Crops & Livestock, Mixed Field Crops ² and Other ³.

Standard Output (SO)

The Standard Output (SO) of an agricultural product is defined as the average monetary value of the agricultural output at farm-gate prices. SO is not a measure of farm income. It does not take into account costs, direct payments (such as the Single Farm Payment), value added tax or taxes on products. This has replaced the concept of Standard Gross Margin (SGM) which was previously used to measure the economic size of a farm. Therefore, direct comparisons cannot be made between the economic size of farms in this report and the economic size of farms published for earlier years.

Economic Size

The Economic Size of the holding is measured as the total standard output of the holding expressed in euro. Holdings are classified by fourteen size classes which are set out in Annex II to Commission Regulation (EC) no 1242/2008. Some of these size classes have been grouped together here and therefore, only eight size classes are presented in this report.

Family Farms

These are farms which are operated as family-based enterprises.

Commercial Farms

These are farms registered as companies which paid all their workers as employees (including management) or farms connected with institutions (e.g. schools, colleges, religious communities, prisons etc.). All persons working on commercial farms are classified as regular non-family workers.

Farm Holder

The legal owner of a family farm.

Farm Manager

The person responsible for the day to day running of the farm. On 97.0% of Irish farms, the farm manager was also found to be the holder.

Non-Regular Labour Input

This refers to the labour supplied by those not employed on a regular basis such as casual workers, agricultural contractors and farm relief services.

Annual Work Unit (AWU)

The labour input of each person who worked on the farm was measured in terms of AWUs with one AWU being defined as 1800 hours or more of labour per person per annum.

Significance of Farmwork

This categorises the relative importance of farmwork as an occupation to the farm holder.

Sole occupation: If an individual engaged in farmwork had no other occupation from which an income was earned, then farmwork was the sole occupation.

Major occupation: If farmwork took up the greater part of a worker’s time, it was regarded as a major occupation.

Subsidiary occupation: If the time spent on gainful non-farming activity exceeded that spent on farmwork then farmwork was regarded as a subsidiary occupation. Gainful non-farming activity includes paid farmwork on other farms and all other non-farming activities from which an income was obtained, whether undertaken on or off the farm.

² This group includes farms growing various crops (including silage, hay, pasture or rough grazing) but with no dominant crop type.

³ This group includes farms specializing in horticulture, fruit, pig or poultry production, mixed crops, mixed livestock and a small number of unclassified farms.

Description of EU Farm Typology Classification System

Introduction

The EU Farm Typology Classification System was developed in order to identify and classify relatively homogeneous groups of farms by reference to two economic characteristics of the farm, its type of activity and its economic size. Both of these characteristics are determined by the application of Standard Output (SO) coefficients, estimated regionally per hectare of crop or per animal, to the individual farm’s crop and livestock activities. In this way, all the farm’s activities can be measured and compared on a standardised basis (i.e. SO). The classification system is used for the periodic Censuses and Farm Structure Surveys, the current series of which are conducted under Council Regulation (EU) No 1166/2008 ¹, as well as the ongoing Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) surveys. A complete description of the Farm Typology system is given in Commission Regulation (EC) no 1242/2008 ².

Standard Output (SO)

The Standard Output (SO) of an agricultural product is defined as the average monetary value of the agricultural output at farm-gate prices. The SO does not take into account costs, direct payments, value added tax or taxes on products. The SO coefficient for each product is determined on the basis of a standard 12-month production period and is calculated as a regional average within each member state. The two regions in Ireland are Southern-Eastern (SE) and Border, Midland, Western (BMW). The SOs used in the case of Farm Structure Survey, were referenced to ‘2013’ (i.e., calculated as the 5-year average of 2011-2015 SOs) and the Irish coefficients are given in Table I below. These values will be updated to take account of economic trends and the frequency of the update is linked to the years in which farm structure surveys are carried out. The Farm Structure Survey will next take place as a Census in June 2020.

Economic Size (SO) Classification

The Economic Size of the holding is measured as the total standard output (SO) of the holding expressed in euro. Holdings are classified by fourteen economic size classes which are set out in Annex II to Commission Regulation (EC) no 1242/2008. Some of these size classes have been grouped together and therefore only eight size classes are presented in this report.

Farm Type Classification

The farm type classification of a farm is determined by the relative contribution of the standard output of the different activities on the holding to the total standard output of the holding. The farm type classification is a three-level hierarchical nomenclature which divides types of farming into the following structure:

Level 1: General Farm Types (9 headings)

Level 2: Principal Farm types (21 headings)

Level 3: Particular Farm types (62 headings)

The complete classification including the definition of farm types is described in Commission Regulation (EC) no 1242/2008.

For EU purposes, all farms included in the Farm Structure Survey were classified down to the most detailed farm type (i.e. Level 3). However, details at Level 1 and 2 are found to be adequate for most analytical purposes. A description of the headings comprising two levels of the basic typology classification as well as the definitions of the headings are given in Table II.

To facilitate the presentation of the Farm Structure Survey 2023 results according to type of farming, eight summary farm type classes relevant to Irish agriculture were selected from particular groupings of the farm typology classification headings described above. These derived farm type classes are identified in Table III below.