Pilot Farms Structure Survey

The subject of agricultural census was for the first time referred to in the 18th century. Starting from the middle 19th century, regular censuses were carried out in Serbia and in the regions under Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; those used to be censuses of livestock.

The first overall census of agricultural holdings was conducted on 31 March 1931, pursuant to the Law on census of population, agricultural holdings and livestock. This census was implemented within the World census of agriculture.

After the WW2, the first agricultural census was carried out in 1948.

As long as until 1953, a census of livestock was implemented every year, and only in the census of 15 January 1951 along with data on livestock, compiled were the main data on land, structure of crop areas and agricultural machines and tools.

The census of agricultural holdings in 1960 was the second general census of agriculture.   It   was   implemented   by   combining   various   methods   for   various observation units. The method of reporting was applied to compile statistics for holdings in social ownership (agricultural enterprises, agricultural institutions, general agricultural cooperatives, cooperatives of farmers, holdings of agricultural schools, university faculties and research institutions, etc.). The census of holdings in social ownership was carried out from 1 – 10 March 1969, and the census of family agricultural holdings was implemented in the period from 15 – 31 March 1960.

The third agricultural census in Yugoslavia was conducted in 1969 as a sample based survey; it included holdings in social ownership and family holdings.

Through 1981 census of population, households and dwellings compiled were the main agricultural data. In difference to other censuses, this census was conceived to comprise organisational and methodological principles of census of population and census of agriculture.

The 1991 census of population, households and agricultural holdings covered all family agricultural holdings, regardless their size and location.

Within the Census of population, households and dwellings 2002 compiled were data on agricultural assets for family agricultural holdings. There were 16 questions in total and they concerned data on land, production output and stocks of wheat and maize, use of mineral fertilisers and pesticides, number of livestock, poultry and beehives, and number of tractors and harvesters.

The Census of Agriculture 2012 (AC) was in 2012, conducted by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS) pursuant to Law on the Census of Agriculture 2011 (Official gazette RS, number 104/09 and 24/11) and within the EU project IPA 2011 (Instrument of Pre-accession Assistance).  

In 2018, Farm structure survey on the sample was carried out within the National IPA 2016 programme. Applied instruments, coverage, characteristics and standardisation of the concept and definitions are in compliance with the (Regulation (ЕC) No 1166/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008, on farm structure surveys and survey on agricultural production methods; Regulation (ЕC) No 1200/2009, Regulation (EU) No 715/2014) and the Eurostat methodology

The Farm Structure Survey is conducted in compliance with the Official Statistics Law (“The Official Gazette of the RS,” no. 104/09) and the Regulation on the Setting of the Plan for the Official Statistics for the Year 2018 (“The Official Gazette of the RS,” no. 120/17).

The Law provides obligations of data providers. The person providing the data on the survey unit is obliged to give answers to all the questions in the questionnaire 

Duties of interviewers and other persons directly carrying out survey operations are established by the Law. Interviewers, controllers and other persons executing operations relative to the survey are obliged to perform the survey operations in due time and in a requested manner.

• SORS: Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia
• FSS: Farm Structure Survey
• LSU: Livestock unit
• MAFWM: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Watermanagement
• SFR: Statistical Farm Register
• AC: agriculture census
• AWU: annual working unit

Deffinitions:

Location of the holding is the place in which the entire agricultural production or its major part are conducted. This is usually the place where the agricultural facilities/buildings intended for agricultural production are located (e.g., facilities for the placement of livestock, greenhouse, cold storage for the placement of agricultural products, the biggest administration building, etc.) or the biggest area of the used agricultural land.

Used agricultural land consists of:

   ► agricultural land in the kitchen garden,

   ► arable land and gardens (including fallow land),

   ► permanent crops – orchards, vineyards, nurseries, basket willow plantings, timothy grass areas, carob bean areas, areas in which truffles are               grown, as well as tree plantings made for sale (Christmas trees), and

   ► meadows and pastures

which the holding regularly cultivates – uses.

Kitchen garden - For the needs of the Survey, the kitchen garden will mean the agricultural area used for growing agricultural products intended for the own consumption of the members of the holding, whereas the holding may only temporarily sell the surplus products from the kitchen garden which is usually separated from the other agricultural area and is mostly located beside the house.

Family agricultural holding (family holding) is any family or other community of persons who live together and jointly use their income for meeting their basic life needs (including single households), whose members (one or more of them) undertake agricultural activities, either as their primary or secondary activity, which has single management, jointly uses the production means (land, machinery and buildings) and the work of its members, whose holder is a natural person and:

   ► cultivates – uses 50 and more ares of agricultural land at which it undertakes agricultural activities, regardless of whether this production is                   intended for the market or not, or                                                                                                                                                                                       ► cultivates – uses less than 50 ares of agricultural land, but undertakes intensive crop, fruit, vineyard, vegetable and flower production (including           also production in glass and plastic greenhouses), mushroom and livestock production, that is, undertakes agricultural activities intended for the           market, or

    ► breeds at least: – two bovine animals units, or – one bovine animals unit and two small animal units (pigs, goats, sheep – together), or – five                sheep units or five goat units, or – three pig units, or – four small animal units (pigs, goats, sheep – together), or – 50 poultry units, or – 20 bee            colonies.

Agricultural holdings with legal personality are:

► companies, agricultural cooperatives and other forms of organisations with a legal person status and entrepreneurs enlisted at the Business                 Registers Agency as predominantly undertaking agricultural activities,

► companies, agricultural cooperatives and other forms of organisations with a legal person status and entrepreneurs registered for some other              activity which have organisational units that undertake agricultural activities

Holder of the family holding is the person (a natural person) who is economically and legally accountable for the work of the holding and in whose name the said holding functions, that is, the person who undertakes the operating risks.

Administrator or manager at the holding is the person in charge of making and implementing daily decisions related to production and finances of the holding.

Members of the holding  include the holder of the holding, members of the family and relatives of the holder of the holding (married and unmarried spouse, children, parents, the in-laws or adopted members, as well as brothers and sisters of the holder of the holding and the spouse) who work at the holding, regardless of whether they live at the holding (whether they belong to another household) and whether they are paid in some way for their work at the holding or not.

Мembers of the family and relatives of the holder of the holding who undertook agricultural activity at the holding

Permanently employed at the holding who are not members of the family or relatives are all those persons who regularly perform agricultural work at the holding and receive compensation for such work (salary, daily wages, assistance, payment in kind, etc.) from the holding, but who are not members of the family of the holder of the holding or relatives, regardless of whether the holding pays social contributions for their engagement (whether they are registered with the relevant services or not).

Annual Work Unit (AWU) is a measurement unit which represents the quantity of human labour used for undertaking agricultural activities at each holding. This unit represents an equivalent of the labour of a single person, i.e., the full work time within a year: eight hours a day, 225 working days.

Other gainful activities include all the activities that are not agricultural activities at the holding, but have an economic impact on the holding. They may be: 

   ► activities directly related to the holding – the resources of the holding are used: land areas, agricultural buildings, machinery, equipment, labour           force or agricultural products, which may be: – undertaken at the holding (non-agricultural activities such as tourism, handicraft, processing of               agricultural products for sale – except for the processing of grapes for wine production in the case when the quantity of the processed grapes is           solely or mostly from the own production, etc.), Note: Methodological Instructions 58 Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia – not undertaken           at the holding (contracted agricultural and non-agricultural work, e.g., work with the own combine harvester);

   ► activities not directly related to the holding – the resources of the holding are not directly used, except for the labour force of the holding, which              may be: – undertaken at the holding – e.g., hairdresser or seamstress that render services at the holding, tradesman-a member of the holding              works at their own shop (which does not sell the holding’s products) or at an agricultural pharmacy that is located at the holding, giving lessons            at  the holding – training by a member of the holding, etc. – not undertaken at the holding – any other employment of the members of the holding          such as, e.g., work at a bank, in a factory, administration, education, etc.

Agricultural holding is a technically and economically single unit which has a single management and at which a company, agricultural cooperative, institution or some other legal company, an entrepreneur or a family agricultural holding undertake agricultural activities as their primary or secondary activity

Activities defining an agricultural holding for the purpose of the census, according to the National Classification of activities, are as follows:

• Growing of annual, biennial and perennial crops (activities under group 01.1 and 01.2);
• Plant propagation (group 01.3);
• Production of wine from self-produced grapes (class 11.02);
• Animal production (group 01.4, where class 1.49 – Raising of other animals includes only raising of ostriches, emus and rabbits, as well as bee-keeping, production of honey and beeswax);
• Mixed farming (group 01.5); and
• Maintaining agricultural areas in good agricultural and environmental condition (activities within class 01.61). Other support activities to agriculture and post- harvest crop activities (group 01.6) does not define agricultural holding when undertaken exclusively.

In the FSS 2018, family agricultural holding means every family or other community of people living together and sharing subsistence expenses out of their respective income (including single households), whose members (one or more) are engaged in agricultural production, being either their primary or supplementary activity, having a single management, sharing joint production means (land, machinery, buildings) and its members’ labour, the holder of which is a physical person, and is engaged in land cultivation and livestock rasing exceeding the thresholds presented in 2.6 Statistical population - item 2. below.

Special cases

1. When due to tax liabilities or for some other reasons a holding is divided among two or more people, however it is still a single economic unit and has single management (one common manager – in charge of organising agricultural production), it will be considered a single (one) holding.
2. When two or more independent holdings join together (wholly or partly) in a single holding using the same labour force and equipment and have single management, it will be considered a single (one) holding.
3. If one lot of utilised agricultural area was kept by the previous owner when having transferred the holding to another person (successor, lessee, etc.), this lot will be included: in the holding of another person (successor, lessee, etc.) if he/she cultivates this lot together with the rest area of its holding; in the holding of the previous owner if he/she cultivates this lot using own labour force and equipment.
4. If an agricultural holding used land or raised livestock on different locations, it shall be considered a single holding as long as it remains a single economic and technical unit (joint use of production means) and has single management

For the purpose of the survey, the following shall be regarded as agricultural holdings:

• stations for raising breeding stock heads (bulls, boars, rams, he-goats, stallions, etc.) and hatcheries;
• holdings  of  research  institutions,  religious  communities,  schools,  military institutions, confinement institutions, sanatoriums, and
• local government bodies (municipalities) that are in charge of common land (common pastures and grassland) that is neither let on lease nor transferred to another agricultural holding, however is used for practising rights of common pasture.

The survey did not cover:

• households with own-account agricultural production using less than 50 ares of agricultural land, and not engaging in agricultural production intended for the market, nor meeting minimum one condition regarding the number of raised livestock (see 2.6 Statistical population - item 2. below);
• riding stables, racing stables, gallops, if not engaging in horse breeding (land used for exercising thereof is excluded), as well as kennels, markets and slaughterhouses,
• forestry holdings,  fish  farms,  and  holdings  undertaking support  activities  to agriculture and post-harvest crop activities, unless they engage in other activities qualifying them as agricultural holdings.

Survey coverage:

• enterprises, agricultural cooperatives, other forms of organisation with legal personality and unincorporated enterprises registered with the Serbian Business Registers  Agency  as  engaged  in  agricultural  production  as  their  prevailing activity,
• enterprises, agricultural cooperatives, other forms of organisation with legal personality and unincorporated enterprises registered for other activity that have organised  branches  or  other  organisational   units  carrying  out  agricultural production,
• family agricultural holdings.

 The frame size from SFR was 626,865 AH of which: 1,978 legal entities, 455 unincorporated enterprises and 624,432 family agricultural holdings

1. A family agricultural holding is covered if it:

• cultivates - uses 50 or more ares of agricultural land for agricultural production, whether such production is intended for the market or not, or cultivates - uses less than 50 ares of agricultural land, however practices intensive crop farming, fruits growing, viticulture, growing of vegetables and flowers (including production under glasshouses and poly-tunnels), production of mushrooms and livestock raising, i.e. engages in other forms of agricultural production intended for the market, or
• raises, as of 30 September 2018 no less than:
  • 2 heads of cattle, or
  • 1 head of cattle and 2 heads of small animals / pig, goat, sheep - in total,   or
  • 5 heads of sheep or 5 heads of goat, or
  • 3 heads of pig, or
  • 4 heads of small animals / pig, goat, sheep - in total, or
  • 50 heads of poultry, or
  • 20 colonies of bees.

2. Agricultural holdings with legal personality

Survey was conducted on the territory of Republic of Serbia without territory of Region Kosovo and Metohia.

The Farm Structure Survey is conducted from 1 October to 30 November 2018. The critical moment is 30 September 2018 at 24 hrs, i.e., at midnight between 30 September and 1 October 2018. 

The reference period of the Survey refers to:

а) the date of the critical moment (30 September 2018), for the data on: 

• the available land, and
• number of livestock;

b) agricultural year (from 1 October 2017 to 30 September 2018) for the data on:

• the use of agricultural land,
• the use of organic fertilizers,
• organic production,
• used machinery,
• production methods in agriculture,
• labour force,
• non-agricultural gainful activities at the holding,
• use and sale of own agricultural products.

The Farm Structure Survey is conducted in compliance with the Official Statistics Law (“The Official Gazette of the RS,” no. 104/09) and the Regulation on the Setting of the Plan for the Official Statistics for the Year 2018 (“The Official Gazette of the RS,” no. 120/17).

Regulation (EC) No 1166/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on farm structure surveys and the survey on agricultural production methods and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 571/88 (Text with EEA relevance)

Accordin to the Offical statistical law, (headding IX) all producers of statistical datad aswell as persons involved in activities referred to FSS are bound to official secrecy as regard all data provided by the units covered by the survey, which are relative to personal, family, property and economic circumstances. The data collected in line with the Official statisical law may be used exclusively for statistical purposes and disseminated in the form of aggregates.

The personal and other data that will be collected by the survey shall be regarded as official statistics and therefore they will be held confidential and subject to the provisions of special protection.

Data protection is predicted by REGULATION (EC) No 1166/2008 

Regarding protection of final output tables the individual cell in the table is protected if there are fewer than "3" reporting units.

Final data are available in dissemination database http://data.stat.gov.rs/?caller=SDDB

Based on analysis of FSS 2018 data, publishing of 7 studies (special publications) is planned. As authors of these publications, experts in various agricultural areas are engaged. Publications will be promoted at the end of September 2019 and will be publishet on SORS site

Final data in july 2019.

Dissemination database is available on mentioned site, as well as on the official SORS site: www.stat.gov.rs.

Micro-data are not disseminated.

The micro-data are available according to special conditions for research purposes in compliance with the system of rules and procedures related to the dissemination of statistically protected micro-dataaccordance contained by Law on Official statistics. In this case, written request by research body must include purpose for which data will be used and can obtain micro data without persnal indentification. 

Methodology is available: http://popispoljoprivrede.stat.rs/popis/spg/en/?page_id=294

SORS quality policy is available on link: http://www.stat.gov.rs/media/2334/quality-policy.pdf

National methodological report was uploaded into National Reference Metadata in ESS Standard for Quality Reports Structure (ESQRS).

National needs are discussed with main stakoheldors, mainly representatives from MOAFWM.

Certain categories of livestock and crops are more detailed than in Eurofarm in order to provide base for validation of other annual statistical surveys. have been also taken into account. 

Data on production for certain characteristics of crops and livestock have been alo added for SORS internal needs.

Registration ID number in administrative register is also added for updating SFR and using administrative data in future.

Characteristics collected are in line with Regulation 1166/2008.

Please access the information on NE and NS characteristics in the Aneex

Main sources of error are sampling errors, non-sampling errors (coverage errors and deviation from standard definitions), non-response errors, measurement errors and processing errors.

 For calculating estimates and standard errors we used Swedish software ETOS.

Kofficients of variation for main characteristics can be found in annex.

The applied standardised concepts and definitions are in compliance with  "Draft proposal for the FSS 2016  variables definitions for: (i)  Commission Regulation (EU)  N° 1391/2015 (ii) Handbook on FSS definitions for  FSS 2016".

564541

631552 

89.39 

in Serbia still prevail small holdings, but tendency is their slow enlargement.

The number of the holdings decreased, but total UAA slightly increased comaped to the AC 2012

Small units are selling or renting their agricultural land due to economic reasons and they have tendency to disappear.

Average size of UAA is 6,2ha per holding, while in AC 2012 this average was 5,4 which is mainly the consequence of decreased number of holdings.

1702829

383881

109.70

1414564

93.13 

Comparisons were made with regular statistical surveys on crop in conducted in May 2018 and animal production in 2017. In the analysis of compared data taken into account are the different periods of observations and size of the samples.                              

All agricultural statistics are produced in the same department and optimal coordination of surveys exists in order to avoid situation that some farms have to answer multiple questionnaires with the same kind of questions so the annual surveys in december on crop and livestock production in 2018 havent been conducted. Other than that due to the fact that organic production was taken from administrative sources, respondents didn't have to fill that set of questions.

Data revision is not planned so far. General revision policy is available on link: http://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/o-nama/dokumenti/politike/politike

 Data revision is not planned so far. First results are issued in April 2019. Final data ara available since July 2019.

FSS 2018 data was collected by conducting survey based on stratified simple random sample, combined with administrative data source.

Sampling frame was derived from Statistical Farm Register (SFR) and contained all agricultural holdings (state March 2018) which are not deceased. Frame contained about 2000 legal entirety, 455 unincorporated enterprises and about 624 000 family agricultural holdings. In the statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, Statistical Farm Register has been constructed in 2013, after Agricultural census 2012. Since 2014, SFR is updating using data from Register of agricultural Holdings of Ministry of agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, Bovine register, data from Statistical Business register and survey data. Statistical Office receives data from the Register of Agricultural Holdings of the Ministry of Agriculture at the end of May, but SFR is updated with this data in February next year, after conducting all agricultural surveys in current year. 

Stratification was done by cross-classifying the legal status, typology classes, NUTS3 level by the location of agricultural holding, NUTS2 level by the location of agricultural holding and census indicator.

Census indicator:                                                                                                                   

One part of the frame was selected as a census (take-all) set using Hidiroglou algorithm¹. The condition for take-all units was defined on the level of NUTS2 in order to achieve a certain level of precision for variables listed in Regulation 1166/2008 ANNEX IV Precision requirements.

 Exhaustive strata are all legal entities and unincorporated enterprises, as well.

[1]Hidiroglou algorithm, based on information on an auxiliary variable (correlated with the study variable), determined an optimum cut-off value for “take-all” units that minimize the sample size for a given precision for an estimate of the total at the given level.

Geographical reference of the holdingwere provided in the SORS from the available graphic base of enumeration areas. Administrative database for organic producers were used for data on organic production.

The register of organic producers is updated when the holding is visited by the control or certificat issuing organization.

The Law provides right of access to administrative data through the responsibilities of ministries and other selected organisations.

For familly holdings and enterprenuars CAPI method on the field was used. For Legal entities CAWI method of data collection was used.

Data entry was performed offline, by entering data into data entry application, stored in local database in lap top computers, and uploaded into central database when iternet acces becomes available

Number of holdings in the survey frame plus possible (new) holdings added afterwards

Number of holdings in the gross sample plus possible (new) holdings added to the sample

9 753

Number of ineligible holdings with ceased activities

Number of holdings with unknown eligibility status

Number of eligible holdings

Number of eligible non-responding holdings

Number of the records in the dataset 

The questionnaire used in FSS is unique for all holdings, regardless of legal status. Each indicator has a unique code on the questionnaire.

For the purposes of better understanding of questions by members of national minorities in the Republic of Serbia, specimen forms in Hungarian and Albanian.

The way of gathering data enabled data controll as they were entered. The procces of  data validation began on the field. Around 270 logical controll rules have been built in application for data entry and about 20 warning messages.  As for the holdings of legal entities, they have been provided access to the web questionnaire with the same controls built in the questionnaire. 

After the field work was finished and data was received and linked into one database, contingency control and logical control of material have been continued. Durring that process, additional logical control rules was implemented on material and this showed that 37.938 was affected with one or more errors. In order to correct all inconsistencies and prepare database for sample methodologists for determination of post stratification and eventual new weights calculaton,  additional checks and data validation were performed:

-          Checking of the completness of data

-          Checking weather all holdings meet the criterion for the agricultural holding

-          Establishing the number of the holdings by comparison the unit response with the existance of the unit in other statistical and administrative sources

-          Checking consistency of the data which werent checked with built in LC during the data entry and outliers checking

-          Individual data corrections: for the incorrect outliers (where there is a certain mistake)

-          Logical imputation: imputed value is calculated from the values of other variables

-          Hot-deck method: Imputed value is taken from another unit (donor). Donors are selected as similar units to the recipient with respect to the (one or more) matching variables

-          Average ratio - Imputed value is calculated as the ratio of totals of the variable and auxiliary variable, multiplied by the value of the recipient’s auxiliary variable.

-          Data validation with administrative sources (Ministry of agriculture register from 2018) or with statistical surces (annual statistical surveys)

-          Comparison of the relation of certain variables obtained in FSS 2018 and AC 2012 such as SO per holding, AWU per holding, or AWU per UAA, LSU and other.

Comparison between AC2012 and FSS 2018 data                                                               

The translation (transformation) of the data for the needs of the EUROFARM base was done Eurostat validation rules have been applied and the data are forwarded to Eurostat.