The main results of the Pesticides Survey on Wheat in Hungary Hungarian Central Statistical Office Environment Statistics Section by Pál AUJESZKY 3rd Joint Workshop on Pesticides Indicators (Valletta, Malta 17-18 January 2008) www.ksh.hu

Background information 1/2. Projekt participants: Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) – coordination Agricultural Office Deputy Directorate Responsible for Authorization of Plant Protection Products/ Plant Protection Department – fieldwork Expert from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)

Background information 2/2. Sales data are collected on annual basis by the Research Institute for Agricultural Economics Statistical data collection on pesticides use not carried out except for the pilot project in 2005 Information on area treated with pesticide by main crops are included in FSS 2007 Number of farms in Hungary 8000 agricultural enterprises 707 000 private farmers Average farm size (agricultural area) 380 hectares – enterprises 3 hectares – private holdings

Type of the survey TF2005 Representative survey on pesticide use concerning winter wheat Carried out on voluntary basis Reference period 2005-2006 (crop season) The sample frame of the survey based on Farm Register derives from Agricultural Census 2000. The register is actualized according to interval agricultural surveys (FSS 2003, 2005) Sample frame included 2 858 agricultural enterprises and 9 546 private holdings with wheat production Three size classes for 20 counties (NUTS 3) Stratification criteria is the harvested area of wheat < 5ha 5-100ha >100ha

Selected farms for the survey

Electronic data collection All questionnaires are filled out in electronic way Personal interview (Info Path 2003) Holdings <100 hectares are visited by inspectors Number of farms: 520 Response rate: ~99% Field interviews were performed by 25 PPP inspectors in August 2007. They recorded data on their laptops By downloadable questionnaire In order to reduce the cost of the survey questionnaires were collected from the bigger holdings per Windows Server (hosting) Number of farms: 260 Response rate: ~50% Data collection was performed in August-September 2007.

Problems encountered during the data evaluation Some pesticides were missing from „pull down” pesticide list of the questionnaire, and „other” category was not given Not take into account that case, when farmer did not use pesticides at all. In this case inspectors had to select a pesticide and make a note about this at the end of the questionnaire: (1-2% of questionnaires) Many times inspectors had to use the substitute list of farms because the original farm list was not up-to date (e.g. included farms not interested in wheat production, address was not suitable) The database is made by MS-Access to avoid the mystery of IT or/and the subordination to IT (e.g. Oracle)

The Access database behind the Survey 1/2.

Connections of the tables of the Access database, queries

Problems to be solved Further evaluation and validation of survey data Imputation Elaboration of the meta data informations Grossing-up to the national level Calculation of indicators Compilation of the Final Report Not take into account that case, when farmer did not use pesticides at all. In this case inspectors had to select a pesticide and make a note about this at the end of the questionnaire: (1-2% of questionnaires) Many times inspectors had to use the substitute list of farms because the original farm list was not up-to date (e.g. included farms not interested in wheat production, address was not suitable) We organised the data in a MS Access database to avoid the informatical mistifications (Oracle etc.)

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