Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
The Economic Accounts for Agriculture (EAA) provide an overview of the agricultural activities in a systematic and comparable way to serve as basis for analyses, forecasts and political measures. The methodology is laid down in Annex I of the Regulation (EC) 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council. The EAA methodological manual provides further details and clarifications (website).
3.2. Classification system
The EAA are a satellite account of the European System of Accounts (ESA), therefore EAA constitute an integral part of the ESA. As such, they are compiled based on NACE Rev. 2, the statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community. The list of activities, which defines the agricultural industry corresponds, in principle, to Division 01 of that classification: Crop and animal production, hunting and related service activities. However, some differences exist that are detailed in Annex I of Regulation (EC) 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
3.3. Coverage - sector
The sector covers all units involved in agricultural production, even if some of those units have other more important economic activities even if the purpose of these activities is not commercial. However, kitchen gardens (producing for own-consumption only) are not included. The list of agricultural activities covered by EAA corresponds to the seven groups of Division 01 of NACE Rev 2 activities (01.1 to 01.7), with the following caveats/differences:
inclusion of the production of wine and olive oil (exclusively using grapes and olives grown by the same holding),
exclusion of certain activities which, in NACE Rev. 2, are considered as agricultural services (e.g. the operation of irrigation systems - only agricultural contract work is taken into account here).
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
The EAA are a satellite account of the ESA providing complementary information and concepts adapted to the particular nature of the agricultural industry.
The EAA are shown as a sequence of inter-related accounts. As the EAA are based on the industry concept, the sequence of accounts is limited to the first accounts of the current accounts:
the production account (its balancing item: value added)
the generation-of-income account (its balancing item: operating surplus).
Nevertheless EAA contains other accounts (of the ESA) at least partly:
the entrepreneurial income account (one of the current accounts) and
the capital account (one of the accumulation accounts).
The EAA provide a wide range of indicators on the economic activities of the agricultural sector: these include output, intermediate consumption, gross and net value added, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), both at current prices and at reference year prices, as well as compensation of employees, other taxes and subsidies on production, net operating surplus or net mixed income, property income and net entrepreneurial income at current prices. (see for more details points 1.40-1.48 in Annex I of Regulation (EC) 138/2004.)
Three income indicators are defined in the EAA:
Index of the real income of factors in agriculture per annual work unit (indicator A).
Index of real net agricultural entrepreneurial income per unpaid annual work unit (indicator B).
Net entrepreneurial income of agriculture (indicator C).
See for more details chapter 5 in Annex I of Regulation (EC) 138/2004.
3.4.1. Components of the Production account : Output
Agricultural output is the total of the agricultural products and the goods and services produced in inseparable non-agricultural secondary activities during the accounting period. It is recorded as a resource in the production account and it is valued and recorded at the time it is generated, i.e. when produced and not when paid by the purchaser. In the compilation of the EAA, output is progressively broken down in quantity terms (see point 2.037 of Regulation (EC) 138/2004).
Output is valued at the basic price. The basic price is the price receivable by the producers from the purchaser for a unit of a good or service produced, minus any tax (i.e. taxes on products) payable on that unit plus any subsidy (i.e. subsidies on products) receivable on that unit. The basic price excludes any transport charges invoiced separately by the producer. It also excludes holding gains and losses on financial and non-financial assets.
The valuation of output at the basic price makes it necessary to distinguish between taxes (other than VAT) on products and subsidies on products, on the one hand, and other taxes and subsidies on production, on the other.
The components of output in the production account are detailed in ANNEX II of the Regulation (EC) 138/2004. The other categories are wider, defined by the countries according to their special characteristics. The table below covers the list of products included under ‘other’ categories.
List of 'Other products'
Items
Other cereals except wheat and spelt, rye and meslin, barley, oats and summer cereals mixture, grain maize, rice
Triticale
Other oleaginous products except Rape and turnip rape seed, Sunflower, Soya
Not applicable
Other industrial crops: others than Oil seeds and oleaginous fruits (including seeds), Protein crops (including seeds), Raw tobacco, Sugarbeet, Fibre plants, Hops
Other crop products: Others: not elsewhere classified: Plants and Flowers, Other renewable raw materials Mixed crops Other industrial crops, Other Seeds and planting inventory - Grass seeds Other field seeds
Medicinal plants Energy crops
Other animals Other than cattle, pigs, equines, sheep and goats, poultry —chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks.
Not applicable
Other animal products: others than milk, eggs, raw wool, silkworm cocoons
Honey
Processing of agricultural products:
Items
Other animal products other than milk
Not applicable
Other inseparable non-agricultural secondary activities (goods and services) Other than Processing of agricultural products
Not applicable
3.4.2. Components of the Production account : Intermediate consumption
Intermediate consumption represents the value of all goods and services used as inputs in the production process, excluding fixed assets, the consumption of which is recorded as fixed capital consumption.
The inputs used for intermediate consumption should be valued at the purchaser prices for similar goods and services applicable at the time of their insertion in the production process. The purchaser price includes taxes less subsidies on products (but excludes deductible taxes like VAT on the products). It also includes any transport charges paid separately by the purchaser to take delivery at the required time and place.
The components of intermediate consumption in the production account are detailed in ANNEX II of the Regulation (EC) 138/2004. The other categories are wider, defined by the countries according to their special characteristics. The table below only covers the list of products included under ‘other’ categories.
List of 'Other products'
Items
Seeds and planting inventory
Energy; lubricants other than electricity, gas, other fuels and propellants
Veterinary Services and Medications, Plant Protection Products, Animal Feed
Grass seeds, Other field seeds
Other goods and services other than listed under 2.108 in the Reg.
Not applicable
3.4.3. Components of the Generation of income account
In the generation of income account, the distributive transactions relate to other taxes on production, other subsidies on production and the compensation of employees.
The components of the generation of income account are detailed in ANNEX II of the Regulation (EC) 138/2004.
3.4.4. Components of the Entrepreneurial income account
The entrepreneurial income account records certain types of property income (mainly land rents, interest and property income attributed to insurance policy holders).
The components of the entrepreneurial income account are detailed in ANNEX II of the Regulation (EC) 138/2004.
3.4.5. Elements of the Capital account
In addition to gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), the capital account records distributive transactions corresponding to aid for investment and other capital transfers.
The elements of the capital account are detailed in ANNEX II of the Regulation (EC) 138/2004.
3.5. Statistical unit
The statistical unit is the local kind of activity unit.
In order to provide more detailed information and to analyse flows generated by the production process and the use of goods and services, it is necessary to select units which emphasise relationships of a technical-economic kind. This means that, institutional units are broken-down into smaller and more homogeneous units with regard to the kind of production (local kind-of-activity units/local KAUs) (ESA 2010, 2.147). The local KAU is defined as the part of a KAU which corresponds to a local unit. The institutional unit's information system is capable of indicating or calculating for each local KAU at least the value of output, intermediate consumption, compensation of employees, the operating surplus and employment and gross fixed capital formation (ESA 2010, 2.148).
The agricultural holding is the local KAU most appropriate to the agricultural industry. However, the variety of agricultural activities that can be performed on agricultural holdings makes them a special type of local KAU. The strict application of the ESA rule to units and their group should in fact result in a division of the agricultural holding into several separate local KAUs in cases where several activities of the NACE Rev. 2 four-digit class are performed on the same holding and the information required according to the explanations above is available. The adoption of the agricultural holding as the local KAU of the agricultural industry in the national accounts (NA) and EAA is based on a statistical approach.
The speciality and the aim of EAA is to cover all agricultural activity carried out by an agricultural holding or any other local KAU not having agriculture as its main activity.
The use of the local KAU as the basic unit for the agricultural industry entails recording non-agricultural secondary activities where they cannot be distinguished from the main agricultural activity (inseparable non-agricultural secondary activities of local agricultural KAUs). The selection criterion for inseparable non-agricultural secondary activities is rather the type of activity than the nature of the product. For example, agro-tourism services provided by a farm are only included if they cannot be separated from its agricultural activities.
3.6. Statistical population
The agricultural industry includes all local KAUs at local level which perform the economic activities, as principal or secondary activity corresponds to Division 01 in NACE Rev. 2 (cf. 1.60 to 1.66 of EAA Reg.)
3.7. Reference area
The entire territory of the country.
3.8. Coverage - Time
Time series of the EAA are available from 1991.
3.9. Base period
Accounts for year n are calculated of the base period is year n-1. Data are derived by chain linking at prices of year 2020 (and at any other reference year prices).
EAA data at current prices and at prices for the preceding year are given in millions of units of national currency.
Agricultural labour input data are given in thousand annual work units (AWU).
2023 calendar year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
EU legislation:
Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 December 2003 on the economic accounts for agriculture in the Community as amended by Commission delegated Regulation (EU) No 2019/280 of 3 December 2018. Transmission of data for the regional EAA (REAA) at NUTS 2 level became obligatory in September 2023. Before September 2023, Eurostat collected REAA data on a voluntary basis.
National legislation:
Memorandum of Understanding between NSI and Federal Office for Agriculture and Food. By decree of the BMEL 123-02103 the BLE was given the task of the agricultural accounts.
REAA:
Memorandum of Understanding of the Working Group of Regional Accounts in 1991 to give the task of REAA to the Statistical Office of Baden-Wuerttemberg.
6.1.2. Responsible institution for compilation of Agricultural Income Index
National Statistical Institute (DESTATIS)
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
BLE delivers the results of EAA to DESTATIS. DESTATIS uses the EAA for the National Accounts. Compilation of bridge table is done by DESTATIS.
DESTATIS supplies data from NA for calculation of EAA.
Data from agricultural statistics and FADN are used for compiling.
Agreement for data sharing with Agrarmarkt Informationsgesellschaft GmbH (AMI)
BLE delivers EAA results for calculation of REAA; REAA results are used in Regional Accounts accordingly.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society. The European Statistics Code of Practice provides conditions that have to be respected by statistical offices in regard to statistical confidentiality (Principle 5).
7.2.2. Comments on the amount of data affected by embargo
Not applicable.
8.1. Release calendar
Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 December 2003 on the economic accounts for agriculture in the Community lays down the date for sending EAA 1st and 2nd estimates and final data to Eurostat. After transmission national publication follows
The final dates will be published on October 15th. Part of the data for the first estimate will be released on December 15th. The data for the second estimate will be released on April 15th.
8.2. Release calendar access
Transmission dates are published. No further calendar is used.
Data are published as tables and text on the website: Release policy - user access and Statistical Yearbook and tweed.
The BLE is preparing a press release for the first estimate.
The data are published annually in the Statistical Yearbook and released on the website in December (First Estimate), April (Second Estimate), and October (Final Data).
The Statistical Yearbook—a standard reference work for politics, public administration, academia, the media, and the agricultural sector. It is distributed annually in both print and online editions.
Our quality management encompasses the planning, execution, control, and monitoring of data.
11.1. Quality assurance
The Quality report is available on BMEL-Statistik website.
The raw data utilized within the EAA are subject to specific quality assurance measures inherent to their respective collection procedures. Further measures to ensure quality are implemented during the subsequent process of compiling the statistics. For instance, checks are performed to verify plausibility and to identify and correct typographical errors or outliers within the data.
EAA uses agri statistical data from other sources. Data are checked for plausibility before use. Basis for checks is done by comparing with previous data in time series.
Results of 1st estimates are discussed with national experts from farmers association for plausibility reasons.
Revision of quality reports is foreseen to be done every five years by regulation.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
EAA, underlies Reg. (EC) 138/2004. EAA is in modernization process to meet further needs of users. This work is in progress and objectives have been defined by European Court of Auditors. Eurostat and the EU-Commission define priorities and set up work programme. They are responsible that user needs are being met and reflected by the statistics.
EUROSTAT, ministry of agriculture, DESTATIS national accounts, Agriculture institutions, universities, farmers.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
No survey about user satisfaction.
NA, EAA and REAA are in contact and transfer on demand all data needed.
12.3. Completeness
For major groups of animal or plant products all needed statistics for compilation are available. Minor products have to be estimated.
All relevant data for Eurostat are available.
All required statistics are available monthly, quarterly or annually.
12.3.1. Data completeness - rate
The quality indicator for data completeness shows the following for the reference year 2023 in the detailed EAA: 1.000
[The indicator shows the ratio of data provided per data required, excluding derogations]
13.1. Accuracy - overall
To describe accuracy, the country uses the quality and performance indicator called ‘data revision – average absolute size’ under point 17.2.1 of this document.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.2.1. Sampling error - indicators
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3.1. Coverage error
Not applicable.
13.3.1.1. Over-coverage - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.1.2. Common units - proportion
Not applicable.
13.3.2. Measurement error
Not applicable.
13.3.3. Non response error
Not applicable.
13.3.3.1. Unit non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.3.2. Item non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.4. Processing error
Not applicable.
13.3.5. Model assumption error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
EAA presents data for year n at 1st Estimates and for year n-1 at 2nd Estimates and at transmission of definitive data. Definitive dates are used.
14.1.1. Time lag - first result
Not applicable.
14.1.2. Time lag - final result
Not applicable.
14.2. Punctuality
Data transmission meets dates given by Reg. 138/2004.
14.2.1. Punctuality - delivery and publication
The quality indicator of punctuality delivered and publication, shows the following for the reference year 2023:
[The indicator shows the time lag of data delivery to Eurostat and the deadline of the transmission.In case data delivered earlier the indicator shows negative value.]
First estimates: -1
Second estimates: -4
Detailed EAA: 0
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The results of EAA are comparable between regions and countries.
15.1.1. Asymmetry for mirror flow statistics - coefficient
Not applicable.
15.2. Comparability - over time
EAA is comparable over a time series beginning in 2010. Revision of EAA does not include years before 2010. So comparability for some variables is slightly limited
15.2.1. Length of comparable time series
Comparable time-series begins with the year 2010. Comparability to previous years is not given for all items.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
No differences
15.3.1. Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics
All statistics used for compilation are coherent to EAA.
15.3.2. Coherence - National Accounts
Output calculations are mostly carried out by EAA. NA adopt these results and add own calculations.
Intermediate consumption calculations are partly carried out by EAA. NA adopt these results and add own calculations. Intermediate consumption of goods like buildings or machines calculations are made by NA. EAA adopt these results.
15.4. Coherence - internal
EAA is compiled bottom up from different statistics. Internal coherence is given.
For EAA and REAA no burden for respondents exist. EAA and REAA do not use surveys.
17.1. Data revision - policy
Revision policy aimed at ensuring the transparency of disseminated data. Chapter 8 of the EAA manual provides guidelines for a harmonised revision policy for EAA, including the ALI data.
17.2. Data revision - practice
Revision policy of ESS is respected.
17.2.1. Data revision - average size
Average of absolute revision is the average of absolute revisions for the years referring between the current quality (2023) and the 5-years' earlier.
Indicator A
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Mean absolute revision (5 reference years)
1st estimate
EAA
1st estimate
EAA
1st estimate
EAA
1st estimate
EAA
1st estimate
EAA
Germany (until 1990 former territory of the FRG)
131.84
147.95
84.51
88.24
94.72
89.97
166.80
157.82
95.61
82.95
9.25
17.2.2. Years where retropolations are carried out and (if they are not yet available) when they will be available
Not applicable.
17.2.3. Details of retropolation method used : items for which estimations are made and assumptions on which these estimations are based
18.2.1. Time of the year where the updates of the EAA are carried out
Updates are carried out before delivery of final data.
18.2.2. Years covered by each of these updates (i.e. update in September of year n for the years n-1, n-2, n-3 )
Updates include years n-1 up to year n-3.
18.3. Data collection
Source for EAA is mainly official data from agricultural statistics. These data are collected by download from data bases. Only a few data are collected by e-mail or phone contact.
The sources are named in the quality report. Data is collected monthly, quarterly or annually.
18.4. Data validation
Validation is done by comparing new data with historic data in a time-series.
Data is regularly checked and updated.
18.5. Data compilation
See information in the following sub-concepts.
18.5.1. Imputation - rate
Not applicable.
18.5.2. Calculation procedures
Please see the Calculation procedure for 1st estimates, 2nd estimates and full set of EAA in Annex 2 Methods for valuing EAA items.
Calculation of compensation of VAT on Other taxes on production: Output value at producer prices (EAA-New Cronos code 18000 ) - services provided by contractors (EAA-New Cronos code 15000) - Feed produced on the farm (EAA-New Cronos code 03000) + sales of used capital goods by flat-rate farmers (12% of the value of EAA-New Cronos code 33100) = "VAT-relevant final output of all farmers. (including own consumption and sales of used capital goods of all farmers)". - Turnover of those subject to standard taxation (turnover tax statistics) 2) = "Final output of flat-rate farmers relevant to sales tax (incl. own consumption, direct sales, and sales of used capital goods of flat-rate farmers)" - Direct sales by flat-rate farmers to final consumers and own consumption by flat-rate farmers 2) = flat-rate taxed sales of flat-rate farmers to taxable persons
Total input taxes (input taxes on inputs and gross fixed capital formation) - Input taxes of flat-rate taxed farmers (sales tax statistics) = Input taxes of flat-rate farmers
Input tax (= input taxes of flat-rate farmers / final output of flat-rate farmers * 100)
Flat rate (=fixed value) 10.7 %
Over- or under-adjustment (=pre-load ./. flat rate)
Revenue adjustment (=flat-rate taxed sales of flat-rate farmers * over- or under-compensation)
18.6. Adjustment
See the following sub-concepts.
18.6.1. Seasonal adjustment
Not applicable.
18.6.2. Components of the Production account : Output
Not relevant
18.6.3. Components of the Production account : Intermediate consumption
Not relevant
18.6.4. Components of the Generation of income account
Not relevant
18.6.5. Components of the Entrepreneurial income account
The Economic Accounts for Agriculture (EAA) provide an overview of the agricultural activities in a systematic and comparable way to serve as basis for analyses, forecasts and political measures. The methodology is laid down in Annex I of the Regulation (EC) 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council. The EAA methodological manual provides further details and clarifications (website).
30 July 2026
The EAA are a satellite account of the ESA providing complementary information and concepts adapted to the particular nature of the agricultural industry.
The EAA are shown as a sequence of inter-related accounts. As the EAA are based on the industry concept, the sequence of accounts is limited to the first accounts of the current accounts:
the production account (its balancing item: value added)
the generation-of-income account (its balancing item: operating surplus).
Nevertheless EAA contains other accounts (of the ESA) at least partly:
the entrepreneurial income account (one of the current accounts) and
the capital account (one of the accumulation accounts).
The EAA provide a wide range of indicators on the economic activities of the agricultural sector: these include output, intermediate consumption, gross and net value added, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), both at current prices and at reference year prices, as well as compensation of employees, other taxes and subsidies on production, net operating surplus or net mixed income, property income and net entrepreneurial income at current prices. (see for more details points 1.40-1.48 in Annex I of Regulation (EC) 138/2004.)
Three income indicators are defined in the EAA:
Index of the real income of factors in agriculture per annual work unit (indicator A).
Index of real net agricultural entrepreneurial income per unpaid annual work unit (indicator B).
Net entrepreneurial income of agriculture (indicator C).
See for more details chapter 5 in Annex I of Regulation (EC) 138/2004.
The statistical unit is the local kind of activity unit.
In order to provide more detailed information and to analyse flows generated by the production process and the use of goods and services, it is necessary to select units which emphasise relationships of a technical-economic kind. This means that, institutional units are broken-down into smaller and more homogeneous units with regard to the kind of production (local kind-of-activity units/local KAUs) (ESA 2010, 2.147). The local KAU is defined as the part of a KAU which corresponds to a local unit. The institutional unit's information system is capable of indicating or calculating for each local KAU at least the value of output, intermediate consumption, compensation of employees, the operating surplus and employment and gross fixed capital formation (ESA 2010, 2.148).
The agricultural holding is the local KAU most appropriate to the agricultural industry. However, the variety of agricultural activities that can be performed on agricultural holdings makes them a special type of local KAU. The strict application of the ESA rule to units and their group should in fact result in a division of the agricultural holding into several separate local KAUs in cases where several activities of the NACE Rev. 2 four-digit class are performed on the same holding and the information required according to the explanations above is available. The adoption of the agricultural holding as the local KAU of the agricultural industry in the national accounts (NA) and EAA is based on a statistical approach.
The speciality and the aim of EAA is to cover all agricultural activity carried out by an agricultural holding or any other local KAU not having agriculture as its main activity.
The use of the local KAU as the basic unit for the agricultural industry entails recording non-agricultural secondary activities where they cannot be distinguished from the main agricultural activity (inseparable non-agricultural secondary activities of local agricultural KAUs). The selection criterion for inseparable non-agricultural secondary activities is rather the type of activity than the nature of the product. For example, agro-tourism services provided by a farm are only included if they cannot be separated from its agricultural activities.
The agricultural industry includes all local KAUs at local level which perform the economic activities, as principal or secondary activity corresponds to Division 01 in NACE Rev. 2 (cf. 1.60 to 1.66 of EAA Reg.)
The entire territory of the country.
2023 calendar year.
To describe accuracy, the country uses the quality and performance indicator called ‘data revision – average absolute size’ under point 17.2.1 of this document.
EAA data at current prices and at prices for the preceding year are given in millions of units of national currency.
Agricultural labour input data are given in thousand annual work units (AWU).
The data are published annually in the Statistical Yearbook and released on the website in December (First Estimate), April (Second Estimate), and October (Final Data).
EAA presents data for year n at 1st Estimates and for year n-1 at 2nd Estimates and at transmission of definitive data. Definitive dates are used.
The results of EAA are comparable between regions and countries.
EAA is comparable over a time series beginning in 2010. Revision of EAA does not include years before 2010. So comparability for some variables is slightly limited
