Transcript Recent Initiatives in UK Agriculture Surveys Peter Helm and Julie Bartlett Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs United Kingdom.

Recent Initiatives in UK Agriculture Surveys
Peter Helm and Julie Bartlett
Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
United Kingdom
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Location of Defra
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The Defra Strategy Arrow
Focussing the
Department
Mission
High Level Goals
September,
2004
“One Planet
Living”
Avoiding
dangerous
climate change
Maintaining &
enhancing the
natural asset
base
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Agriculture in the UK 2007
• 300,000 agricultural holdings in the UK
• 200,000 holdings in England
• 57,000 have no labour, 17,000 require <1 full time worker
• 9% of holdings account for 41% of employment
• 19% of holdings account for 87% of output
• 25% of holdings account for 85% of farm area
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Environmental impacts of agriculture
• 7% of total greenhouse gas emissions
• 60% of nitrates and 29% of phosphates in
rivers
• 66% of nitrous oxide emissions, 90% of
ammonia emissions and <1% of carbon
dioxide emissions.
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Regular surveys run by Defra
Survey
Sample size (England)
June survey of agriculture and horticulture
65,000
December survey of agriculture
20,000
Farm Business Survey
1,800
Labour survey
65,000
Farm Practices Survey
6,000
Earnings and Hours Survey of ag. workers
850
January Horticulture Surveys
1,600
Crops production
850 & 3,500
Fertiliser Practice survey
1,300
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Customers
Publications
Mailshots
OGDs
National Statistics
Eurostat
Emergencies
Farmers
Milk Quota
FCA
(Census & Survey)
Business
FCAG
Government
Policy
Industry
Academia
Parliamentary
Questions
Defra Agencies
WFA
Internet
RADX
Radar
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Key Drivers for survey changes
• Pressure to reduce compliance costs
• Widespread feeling that agriculture is over surveyed in
relation to its economic significance and size
• Increasing “availability“ of administrative data
• New data requirements on agri-environmental data
• Competition from private sector organisations running own
surveys
• Need to improve response rates to reduce survey sample
and costs
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Initiatives taken to reduce survey burden
June Survey (main survey) has greatest scope for
improvement. Initiatives implemented are:
• Increased sampling
• Reduction in numbers of questions asked
• Use of administrative data
• Electronic data capture
• Register improvements
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Reduced Sampling fraction
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
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Reduced numbers of questions
Detailed form
Summary form
•2 pages
•4 pages
•43 questions
•126 questions
•12,000 forms dispatched
•47,000 forms dispatched
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Average number of questions asked
on the survey form
250
200
150
100
50
0
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
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Use of Administrative data
Data potentially available for survey purposes
• Single Farm payment data (field usage data)
• Livestock movement records
• Livestock register data
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Electronic data capture
Whole Farm Approach
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Delivers surveys electronically
•
Data sharing prospects to reduce
need for duplicate requests
•
Enables farmers to do other business
•
Hoping to recover to at least 10%
electronic usage
•
Major savings on validation which
can be done on-line
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Improvements to farm register
• Our Farm Survey register is the most comprehensive
register of farm holdings in England
• Closely linked to the register used by the Rural Payments
Agency
• Improved links with the Interdepartmental Business
Register used by the Office for National Statistics
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Response rates
June survey response rate
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
Response rate
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
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Non-response survey
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Non-response survey
• Main reasons given for non-response to surveys:
• No longer in farming
• Information requested already provided to other
parts of Defra
• Too much paperwork
• No benefit to the farmer
• Farmers claim they did not receive the survey
forms
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Other initiatives to minimise burden/improve response
rates
Other initiatives we are considering include:
• reviewing the collection of information at business rather
than holding level
• developing better links with industry organisations to
encourage their members to respond on our behalf
• setting up of a farmer’s panel to check questionnaires
before issue
• better marketing of survey results highlighting value
• more joining up of surveys
• using minimum thresholds to only target larger farm
businesses
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Agri environment data collection
Farm Practices Survey
FPS 2007
• Survey topics include:
• Water usage and water quality
• Nutrient management
2008 and beyond
• Currently collecting customer feedback on
survey products
• Possible future innovations include:
• The use of veterinary services
• Investigating response rates across farm
sizes, farm types and regions to detect
possible bias
• Economics of modern farming
• Make more use of past data for validation
• Cattle housing and slurry storage
• Improve thresholds to match the topics
covered
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Agri environment data collection
British Survey of Fertiliser Practices
Fertiliser Application Rates Kg/Ha/ per year
• Survey has been brought back
in-house to:
• Aid inter-survey comparisons
• Allow better targeting of
surveys
• Allows better management of
survey burdens
Grass
1996
2006
Nitrogen
113
72
Phosphate
23
16
Potash
30
21
Crops
1996
2006
Nitrogen
145
147
Phosphate
52
35
Potash
61
49
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Agri environment data collection
Farm Business Survey
•Detailed financial and physical data from farms
•Agri-environment data collected includes:
•Farm habitats, e.g. low input pasture, field corners,
conservation headlands
•Costs of key countryside maintenance i.e. creating and
maintaining woodland, ponds & stone walls
•Drivers for such expenditure
•Areas of hedge and woodland planting
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Conclusion
•Pressure to reduce survey burdens on farmers whilst
still providing valuable information on agriculture
•New data needs are becoming more important and we
have to adapt more “traditional” surveys to capture this
new information
•Many challenges and exciting times lie ahead
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Any questions?
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