Agricultural Census 2020
NOTES ON METHODOLOGY
Objective and legal basis of the survey
The objective of the survey is to obtain the most accurate data possible on the state of Croatian agriculture, considering the importance of this sector for the Croatian economy as a whole.
The Farm Structure Survey (hereafter referred to as the FSS) is one of the basic statistical surveys in the area of agriculture. The results of the Survey are comparable at the international level.
The FSS is obligatorily conducted every tenth year as a census, while in the years between the censuses, it is conducted as a sample-based survey. In the Republic of Croatia, this survey was conducted in 2003 as the Agricultural Census, while in 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016 it was carried out as a sample-based survey.
The objective of the survey is to collect the following data:
- on the labour force on agricultural holdings,
- on managers of agricultural holdings,
- on the method of land use (arable land and gardens, permanent crops, kitchen gardens, pastures and meadows),
- on agricultural machinery and equipment,
- on number of livestock,
- on ecological farming,
- on animal housing,
- on manure management.
The following legal basis was applied:
- 2020 Agricultural Census Act (NN, No. 63/19),
- Act on Amendments on 2020 Agricultural Census Act (NN, No. 64/20),
- Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 July 2018 on integrated farm statistics and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1166/2008 and (EU) No 1337/2011,
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1874 of 29 November 2018 on the data to be provided for 2020 under Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 of the European Parliament and of the Council on integrated farm statistics and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1166/2008 and (EU) No 1337/2011, as regards the list of variables and their description.
Coverage
Reporting units are business entities and parts thereof defined in section A Agriculture, forestry and fishing according to the NKD 2007 as well as other business entities and parts thereof engaged in agricultural production but classified elsewhere.
Reporting units are also private family farms engaged in agricultural production.
Agricultural holdings are selected from the Statistical Register of Agricultural Holdings of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics. The sampling frame comprises agricultural holdings with more than 0.4 hectares of utilised agricultural area and more than 0.5 livestock units.
In 2020, the sample frame consisted of 173 776 agricultural holdings and 4 421 business entities and parts thereof, which covered 98% of utilised agricultural area and 98% of livestock units.
Selection of observation units
Agricultural holdings included in the survey frame for 2020 Agricultural Census were those having the physical production above certain criteria of:
a) at least 0.4 ha of utilised agricultural area, or
b) 0.5 livestock units, or
c) less than 0.4 ha of utilised agricultural area, but:
- at least 0.1 ha hectares of vineyards, olive groves and/or orchards, or
- any area of nurseries,
- they are market producers of vegetables, medical herbs, strawberries, mushrooms, flowers or ornamental plants,
- any number of honey bee colonies.
Sources and methods of data collection
For the 2020 Agricultural Census purposes, data were collected directly from reporting units and from administrative data sources. Reporting units are family farms and business entities and parts thereof engaged in agricultural activity.
Data on family farms were collected by enumerators using the computer-assisted personal interviewing method, while data on business entities were collected using web reporting method, or by entering data into the electronic census questionnaire.
Definitions
Agricultural holding is a production management unit engaged in agriculture and operating as a company, craft or cooperative, if it is registered for conducting agricultural activities, as well as a private family farm, which jointly uses labour force and production means (machinery, buildings or land, etc.).
The reference date of the Farm Structure Survey is 1 June in the year when it is planned to be carried out. Some data refer to a period of one year before the Survey, mostly from 2 June of the previous year to 1 June of the current year (labour force and irrigation).
Agricultural production includes the following:
- growing of annual crops,
- growing of perennial crops,
- growing of seeding material and ornamental plants,
- breeding of livestock, poultry and other animals,
- mixed agricultural production (growing crops and breeding livestock, poultry and other animals together),
- auxiliary activities in agriculture and activities following a harvest (land preparation, planting, crop attendance, harvest/gathering, cleaning, peeling, seed processing). Activities related to animal breeding, such as feeding or cleaning of facilities, are also included.
Agricultural production does not include:
- processing of agricultural products,
- forestry (growing and exploitation of forests),
- fishery (fish farming and fishing).
Labour force
Manager is a natural person responsible for usual daily financial and production routines of running a holding.
Holder is a person responsible in legal and economic terms for functioning of a holding; a person who has the legal title, that is, a person who takes on economic risks of doing business. The owner/user can have direct ownership of a farm, have a lease contract for it (for a longer or a shorter period of time) or be given the estate to benefit from and take care of.
Regularly employed labour force are persons who worked for the holding during the last 12 months on the weekly basis, irrespective of the number of hours they worked weekly, and persons who worked regularly during only a part of that time for some reason, e.g. because of education, sickness, disease, accident or death, commencement or termination of employment within the last 12 months or cessation of work due to natural disasters (floods, fires, etc.). Employed persons do not include seasonal workers, who do not have a contract of employment.
Non-regularly employed labour force are those who worked temporarily on a holding during the reference period of 12 months.
Annual work unit is a reference unit expressing the extent of work in annual work units (AWU). One annual work unit corresponds to one person working full time for a holding and amounts to 1 800 hours.
Agricultural land
Total area of land consists of the utilized agricultural land and non-agricultural land area.
Utilised agricultural area is the total agricultural area that was used for crop production in a year in question. It covers arable land, kitchen gardens, orchards, olive groves, vineyards, meadows and pastures, nurseries, land under osier willow and other permanent crops (Christmas trees).
Arable land refers to the land that is regularly farmed and cultivated and is under crop rotation. The following plants are grown on arable land: cereals, pulses for dry grain, root and tuber crops, industrial crops, fodder crops, fresh vegetables and strawberries, flowers and ornamental plants, seeds and seedlings plants as well as fallow land.
Kitchen gardens are areas scheduled for growing of crops (mostly vegetables) that are intended for consumption by persons living in a household and mainly not intended for sale. Only occasional surplus of products grown on these areas is sold outside the household.
Root and tuber crops include potatoes (early, late and seed), sugar beet (excluding seed) and fodder root crops (fodder beet, fodder kale, fodder turnip and other fodder root crops).
Industrial crops include oil crops (soya-bean, sunflowers, rapeseed, pumpkins for oil and hemp for oil), tobacco and aromatic, spices and medicinal herbs.
Green fodder crops cover green maize, other green fodder crops, clover and mixtures, lucerne, leguminous plants and temporary grassland.
Other green fodder crops cover cereals for green fodder, other annual grasses, fodder sorghum and sudangrass.
Leguminous plants cover field peas for green fodder, other green leguminous plants and multiannual clover-grass mixtures.
Temporary grassland covers multiannual grass-clover mixtures and multiannual grass and mixtures of grass.
Vegetables cover areas intended for growing of crops intended for sale in fresh and industrial processing and they are as follows: cauliflower and broccoli, white cabbage, other brassicas (kale, red cabbage and kohlrabi), lettuce (all types), leek, other leafy vegetables (mangel, spinach, celery, chicory etc.), tomatoes, cucumbers and gherkins; melons; watermelons; peppers; vegetables cultivated for fruit (eggplants, courgettes, pumpkins etc.), strawberries; onion, garlic; carrot; beetroot; other root vegetables (horseradish, radish, parsnip, kohlrabi etc.); beans, fresh grains or string beans, peas, fresh grains or string beans and other (not elsewhere mentioned) vegetables (sweet corn and others).
Permanent crops cover areas under orchards, olive groves, vineyards, nurseries and other permanent crops (osier willows and Christmas trees) which are not cultivated in crop rotation, which are not permanent grassland and occupy land in longer period and give yields by many years.
Permanent grasslands are areas used for grazing, making hay and silage (meadows, intensive and extensive pastures). They do not include:
Other land
Unutilised or unused agricultural land is an area no longer worked for economic, social or other reasons and which is not used in the crop rotation system.
Wooded area is an area covered with trees or forest shrubs, including poplar plantations inside or outside woods and forest-tree nurseries grown in woodland for the holding’s own requirements as well as forest facilities (forest roads, storage depots for timber, etc.).
Animals
Livestock unit (LSU) is a standard measurement unit that allows for the aggregation of various categories of livestock in order to enable comparison between them as regards years or different countries. The starting point for calculation of coefficients is 500 kg of live weight of animals. We used Eurostat’s LSU coefficients (Table 1).
Poultry
Poultry includes broilers, hens, turkeys, geese, ducks and other poultry.
Table 1: List of livestock unit coefficients (LSU) used in the 2020 Agricultural Census
|
|
2020 |
|
|
|
|
Equidae |
0,8 |
|
|
|
|
Cattle |
|
|
Young cattle under 1 year old |
0,4 |
|
Cattle, 1 to 2 years old |
0,7 |
|
Cattle over 2 years old, male |
1,0 |
|
Cattle over 2 years old, heifers |
0,8 |
|
Dairy cows |
1,0 |
|
Non-dairy cows |
0,8 |
|
|
|
|
Pigs |
|
|
Piglets under 20 kg |
0,027 |
|
Breeding pigs (50 kilograms or over) |
0,5 |
|
Other pigs |
0,3 |
|
|
|
|
Poultry |
|
|
Laying hens |
0,014 |
|
Chickens for fattening (broilers) |
0,007 |
|
Turkeys |
0,030 |
|
Geese |
0,030 |
|
Ducks |
0,030 |
|
Other poultry |
0,030 |
|
|
|
|
Rabbits |
|
|
Breeding rabbits, females |
0,020 |
|
|
|
|
Sheep |
0,1 |
|
|
|
|
Goats |
0,1 |
|
|
|
|
Honey bee colonies |
- |
Other
Standard output (SO) is a monetary value of gross agricultural production, the price at the gate of the farm.
Typology means a uniform classification of agricultural holdings in the EU Member States for the farm structure surveys in terms of economic size (expressed in 1 000 euro) and according to the type of agricultural production.
Classifications
Published data on the structure of agricultural holdings use the following standard classifications:
NUTS and NKPJS – Standard Classification of Territorial Units: KLASUS
Other methodological explanations
· Census questionnaire – business entities
· Census questionnaire – family farms
· Instructions for business entities
· Instructions for enumerators
Instructions (only in Croatian)
Quality report for statistical survey
Report on the Structure of Agricultural Holdings (PO-22/STR form)
Theme: Quality reporting on statistical surveys
Quality Report for Statistical Survey - Agricultural Census 2020
Due to the rounding of numbers, the total sum in tables may differ from totals of class sizes.
The Croatian Bureau of Statistics published the data from the Agricultural Census 2020 in the PC-Axis database, available at the link: Agricultural Census.
An unplanned revision of data was done on 19 December 2024. It was caused by a subsequent data validation carried out by Eurostat, in which certain changes were determined and the data coverage was expanded.
Abbreviations
AWU annual work unit
Eurostat Statistical Office of the European Communities
FSS Farm Structure Survey
ha hectare
LSU livestock unit
NKD 2007 National Classification of Activities, 2007 version
NKPJS National Classification of Spatial Units for Statistics
NN Narodne novine, official gazette of the Republic of Croatia
NUTS Classification of territorial units for statistics
SO standard output
‘000 thousand
Symbols
- no occurrence