Statistical processing

Source data

The Farm Account Statistics aim to be representative of all agricultural holdings and of the various types of farming. The statistics include both individually owned holdings and jointly owned holdings, primarily partnerships. The main sources are accounting data supplied by accounting offices affiliated with DLBR P/S and by independent accounting firms. The Farm Structure Survey conducted by Statistics Denmark provides the basis for defining the survey population. In addition, administrative registers maintained by public authorities are used for FSDN purposes.

The sampling plan is optimised according to the Neyman allocation criterion using three target variables. The allocation is based on the observed variation within strata defined by EU farm type and economic size. The three target variables are operating result, debt ratio and sustainability measured by the amount of green subsidies, weighted by 40, 30 and 30 per cent, respectively.

For the national statistics, the sample is stratified into six main groups: conventional full-time farms, conventional part-time farms, organic full-time farms, organic part-time farms, full-time horticultural holdings and part-time horticultural holdings.

Under the EU Regulation, Denmark is required to transmit data for 1,450 holdings to the FSDN. At least 80 per cent of this number must be delivered. For the national statistics, only holdings with at least 10 hectares of cultivated land are eligible for selection.

Frequency of data collection

Data are collected annually.

Data collection

Accounting offices affiliated with DLBR P/S submit data electronically through the Ø90 accounting system, where the accounts are supplemented with the additional information required for the statistics. Independent accounting offices submit data through an electronic reporting questionnaire.

Most horticultural accounts are supplied by independent accounting offices, while most agricultural accounts are submitted through Ø90. Data from Ø90 are transferred directly through a system-to-system interface. The accounting data are supplemented with information from administrative registers maintained by public authorities.

Data validation

Before accounts can be submitted, they undergo a series of automated validation checks, including blocking controls, within the Ø90 accounting system or within the electronic reporting questionnaire used for accounts not submitted through Ø90. After receipt by Statistics Denmark, each record undergoes extensive validation both at the individual holding level and across holdings. The validation procedures are particularly comprehensive because de-identified holding-level data are transmitted to the EU Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN), managed by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG-Agri). The standardised extraction of data from Ø90 combined with the extensive validation procedures contributes to the high quality and reliability of the detailed statistical information. After Statistics Denmark has transmitted the de-identified data to the FSDN, they undergo a further validation by DG-Agri. As a result of this process, revisions to the statistics may occur. Consequently, data for the most recent reference year are considered provisional.

Data compilation

The sample is weighted by use of the SAS program CLAN.

The classification according to the economic size is made on the basis of the total standard output (SO) of each individual farm. The SO is calculated for all types of crops and species of livestock as an average of the actual outputs (correspond to the Gross Output) per hectare or per animal in a reference period of 5 years. In former publications the standard gross margin (SGM) has been used. The difference between SO and SGM is that SGM reflects the difference between the gross output and the associated costs per units whereas SO only contain the gross output. In most cases, SO should be larger than SGM however the size of the subsidies which some activities contain can cause SGM to be larger than SO. SO is composed of the different activities on the farm and the type of holding is determined. As a main rule a type of holding is determined when 50 pct. of the total SO is from one specific activity.

In selecting the farms, we have made efforts to include the largest possible number of farms several years in succession. In practice, this implies that a maximum of 80 pct. of the agricultural farms that were included in the statistics for a given year were also included in the previous year. For different types of gardening it is not possible to limit the number of repeats because the number of farms in the sample will be inadequate.

Compilation of the accounts statistics

The average figures per farm for the total population and for sub-groups are estimated as a weighted average. For all agricultural farms and most groupings, a classification into sub-groups according to economic size is used. In some tables, a quartile distribution for central figures (e.g. the net profit) has been conducted for the purpose of analysing the variation of the key figure in question. The information stated is an average of, respectively, the 1st and 4th quartile group - and not the result of the farm, which is situated on the quartile limit.

Adjustment

None.