5. Areas under organic farming Ana Martinez Elisabeth Rohner-Thielen Eurostat / Food safety statistics 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009 Index Introduction Current situation 2008 and 2009 work programmes Task Force “Organic farming statistics” Next steps 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

Introduction - Data collected till 2008 Council Regulation 2092/91, annual reports before 1rst July: Compulsory: Detailed list of organic operators (form C) Voluntary: “Statistical forms” Number of registered organic producers, processors, importers (Form D) Organic crop area (fully converted and under conversion) and production (Form E) Organic livestock numbers and production of organic animal products (Form F) Number of organic processors, by type of activity (Form G) Sent to DG AGRI. Statistical forms forwarded from DG AGRI to Eurostat 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

Introduction – Work carried on before 2008 Improvement of transmission delays over the years Areas for improvement Country coverage: limited number of variables in some cases Breakdown of organic area: fully converted/under conversion Breakdown of organic area by crop Production of organic crops and products of animal origin: almost inexistent Financial help provided by Eurostat: Grants 2004, 2005 and 2006 TAPAS 2007 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

Current situation – Organic crop area Data availability Organic area BE BG CZ DK DE EE IE GR ES FR IT CY LV LT Fully converted and under conversion 2007 2006 Fully converted   2005 Under conversion Organic area LU MT HU NL AT PL PT RO SI SK FI SE UK NO Fully converted and under conversion 2004 2006 2007 Fully converted   2005 Under conversion 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

Current situation – Organic crop area 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

Current situation - New legal basis Since 1 January 2009: Council Reg. 834/2007 on organic production and labelling (repealing Council Regulation 2092/91): Article 36 statistical information  compulsory Necessary for implementation and follow-up of this Regulation Definition: Community Statistical Programme Commission Reg. 889/2008 – Implementing rules Article 93  variables to be collected (same as in previous ‘statistical forms’) Transmission to ESTAT via single entry point before 1 July To be defined: Definitions Level of detail Quality requirements 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009 Work carried on in 2008 Consolidate the annual data collected during previous years Collection of 2007 data: Use the same questionnaires (previous ‘statistical forms’) but improved with definitions proposed by Eurostat Preparatory work for future data collection: Revision of previous questionnaires Consultation of DG AGRI and Eurostat Units E1 and E2  revised questionnaire (Questionnaire 2008) Sent for comments to the members of the Working Group « Food safety statistics » and to the members of the SCOF (Standing Committee for Organic farming) 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009 2009 Work Programme Task Force « Organic farming statistics »: 4-5 May 2009 Revised questionnaire expected to be applied from reference year 2008 onwards (with a try-out in 2009) Data transmission to Eurostat by eDamis (Single entry point) Grants « Assistance to Member States for actions to set up data collection for organic crop production data » Publication: SIF (Statistics in Focus) or DIF (Data in Focus) covering data 2005 to 2007 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

2009 - Task Force “Organic farming statistics” Meeting held 4-5 May 2009 Mandate: Discussion of the results of the 2007 TAPAS Actions Focus on pilot actions for collecting organic crop production Discussion of the revised questionnaire (Questionnaire 2008) Proposal for any further actions to be taken in order to improve quality and comparability of organic farming statistics Participants: CZ, DK, DE, SI, LV, IT, HU, NL, NO, AT, PL, PT, RO, SK, FI DG AGRI 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009 2009 - Task Force “Organic farming statistics” Some conclusions of grants/TAPAS actions (I) Differences between results obtained from Farm Structure Surveys and data obtained from administrative registers: Classification schemes: unutilised areas are included in organic area while in FSS they are excluded. Definition of units: two or more organic producers may operate in one agricultural holding enterprises in organic register may be under the threshold of agricultural statistics Reference time: in June (FSS) the farms do not know yet if they will be certified. This is known at the end of certification period (November) 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009 2009 - Task Force “Organic farming statistics” Some conclusions of grants/TAPAS actions (II) Organic sector is small: using existing surveys is problematic because sample size is too small Data should be better obtained by combining administrative sources and existing surveys: merging registers, pre-filled questionnaires Need for integrating statistical classifications and definitions in the administrative sources. Data reported on organic production overestimates the real situation. Collect harvested area and sold production. When using existing surveys, need to adapt the existing questionnaires to the reality of organic farming in order to capture it. 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

2009 - Task Force “Organic farming statistics” Main conclusions Crop production: focus on fully converted areas Organic area: Which definition? Harvested area? Area under cultivation? UAA? Use the appropriate definition for each crop, as in crop statistics regulation Provide draft guidelines developed for crop statistics Organic production rather than “sold production” or “production put in the market” Livestock and animal products: questionnaire to be coherent with regulation on livestock and slaughtering Manufacture of organic food products: no data collection in value Further comments to revised questionnaire: end of June 2009 Gathering comments from other Member States: newsgroup created in CIRCA 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009 Grants 2009 « Assistance to Member States for actions to set up data collection for organic crop production data » Launched in April 2009 Open to all Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, with an information notice to Switzerland Expected results: Provision of data from existing sources Data collection to be based on the revised harmonised questionnaire, taking into account the results of the meeting of the Task Force on ‘Organic farming statistics’ Description of the method used to collect the data and, where needed, for the estimation of organic crop production data Deadline for the transmission of applications: 29 May 2009 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009 Next steps 1rst July 2009 Deadline for submission of 2008 data using harmonised Questionnaire 2008 30 June 2009 Deadline for comments to Questionnaire 2008 July-August 2009 Questionnaire 2009 (taking into consideration comments received) 1rst July 2010 Deadline for submission of 2009 data using harmonised Questionnaire 2009 2nd half 2010 Meeting of the Task Force to put in common results of 2009 grants + experiences of data collection 2009. Output: Questionnaire 2010 End of 2010 Working Group « Food safety statistics », CPSA: final approval of questionnaire 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009

Thank you for your attention 11-12 June 2009 WG Agriculture and Environment - Luxembourg, 11-12 June 2009