Statistics Portugal

Economic Statistics Department / Agriculture and Environment Statistics Unit

Av. António José de Almeida
1000-043 LISBOA

The data describe the structure of agricultural holdings providing the general characteristics of farms and farmers and information on their land, livestock and labour force.  They also describe production methods, rural development measures and agro-environmental aspects that look at the impact of agriculture on the environment.

The data are used by public, researchers, farmers and policy-makers to better understand the state of the farming sector and the impact of agriculture on the environment. The data follow up the changes in the agricultural sector and provide a basis for decision-making in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and other European Union policies.

The statistical unit is the agricultural holding (farm). The aggregated results are disseminated through statistical tables. The data are presented at different geographical levels and over periods.
The data collections are organised in line with Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 and have a new structure, consisting of a core data set and several modules. The regulation covers the data collections in 2019 (the agricultural census), 2023 and 2026. The data are as comparable and coherent as possible with the other European countries.

Data are arranged in tables using many classifications. Please find below information on most classifications.

The classifications of variables are available in Annex III of Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 and in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1874.

The farm typology means a uniform classification of the holdings based on their type of farming and their economic size. Both are determined on the basis of the standard gross margin (SGM) (until 2007) or standard output (SO) (from 2010 onward) which is calculated for each crop and animal. The farm type is determined by the relative contribution of the different productions to the total standard gross margin or the standard output of the holding.

The territorial classification uses the NUTS classification to break down the regional data. The regional data is available at NUTS level 2.

The statistics cover agricultural holdings undertaking agricultural activities as listed in item 3.5 below and meeting the minimum coverage requirements (thresholds) as listed in item 3.6 below.

The list of core variables is set in Annex III of Regulation (EU) 2018/1091.

The descriptions of the core variables as well as the lists and descriptions of the variables for the modules collected in 2019/2020 are set in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1874.

The following groups of variables are collected in 2019:

• for core: location of the holding, legal personality of the holding, manager, type of tenure of the utilised agricultural area, variables of land, organic farming, irrigation on cultivated outdoor area, variables of livestock, organic production methods applied to animal production;
• for the module "Labour force and other gainful activities": farm management, family labour force, non-family labour force, other gainful activities directly and not directly related to the agricultural holding;
• for the module "Rural development": support received by agricultural holdings through various rural development measures;
• for the module "Animal housing and rural development module":  animal housing, nutrient use and manure on the farm, manure application techniques, facilities for manure.

See sub-category below.

The agricultural holding is a single unit, both technically and economically, that has a single management and that undertakes economic activities in agriculture in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 belonging to groups:

- A.01.1: Growing of non-perennial crops

- A.01.2: Growing of perennial crops

- A.01.3: Plant propagation

- A.01.4: Animal production

- A.01.5: Mixed farming or

- The “maintenance of agricultural land in good agricultural and environmental condition” of group A.01.6 within the economic territory of the Union, either as its primary or secondary activity.

Regarding activities of class A.01.49, only the activities “Raising and breeding of semi-domesticated or other live animals” (with the exception of raising of insects) and “Bee-keeping and production of honey and beeswax” are included.

See sub-categories below.

The thresholds of agricultural holdings are available in the annex.

The same population of agricultural holdings defined in item 3.6.1.

The above answer holds for the modules ‘Labour force and other gainful activities’ and ‘Rural development’. The module ‘Machinery and equipment’ is not collected in 2019.

The same population of agricultural holdings defined in item 3.6.1.

See sub-categories below.

The entire territory of the country.

PT Azores - Madeira

Not available.

Farm structure statistics in PT covers the period from 1989 onwards. Older time series are described in the previous quality reports (national methodological reports).

The 2019 data are processed (by Eurostat) with 2017 standard output coefficients (calculated as a 5-year average of the period 2015-2019). For more information, you can consult the definition of the standard output.

Two kinds of units are generally used:

• the units of measurement for the variables (area in hectares, livestock in (1000) heads or LSU (livestock units), labour force in persons or AWU (annual working units), standard output in Euro, places for animal housing etc.) and
• the number of agricultural holdings having these characteristics.

See sub-categories below.

The use of land refers to the reference year 2019. In the case of successive crops from the same piece of land, the land use refers to a crop that is harvested during the reference year, regardless of when the crop in question is sown.

Not applicable.

The reference day was September 1, within the reference year 2019.

The 12-month period ending in October 31, 2019. This period includes the reference day used for livestock and animal housing.

The 12-month period ending in October 31, within the reference year 2019.

The three-year period ending on December 31, 2019.

The reference day was October 1, within the reference year 2019.

See sub-categories below.

Law nº 22/2008, (Official Journal (OJ) no 92 1st Series, of 13th May 2008) - Law of the National Statistical System: It defines the general basis of the National Statistical System.

Law nº 22/2008, (Official Journal (OJ) no 92 1st Series, of 13th May 2008) 

2008

Not applicable.

The national legislation provides for the confidentiality of data collected both as regards data on enterprises and on individuals. The principle of statistical confidentiality is thus applied, i.e. individual statistical data cannot be disclosed (Article 6 of Law No 22/2008 of 13 of May). The violation of statistical confidentiality considered as a breach of the obligation of professional secrecy is punishable (Article 32 of Law No 22/2008 of 13 of May).
All those involved in the IFS/FSS were bound by contracts or protocols listing their responsibilities with regard to the IFS/FSS. These responsibilities were notably technical, or within the scope of statistical confidentiality and professional secrecy, in accordance with the law (Articles 6 and 32 of Law No 22/2008 of 13 of May).

See sub-categories below.

See sub-categories below.

The IFS promotes the most extensive possible use of information, while ensuring compliance with the NSS Law.

Output dissemination until municipality

The analysis made to the variables collected in IFS and their mostly physical nature prevents the respective agricultural holders from being in any way identified. Moreover, there are variables such as crop area (in the case of temporary crops, as the name indicates, they vary every year depending on market and weather conditions during the crop year, and, in the case of permanent crops, they vary depending on the options taken by farmers at a given moment, with new planting or grubbing-up, etc.), which, due to its variability, do not allow for the identification of any holder. Information on livestock is under the same conditions: due to seasonality throughout the crop year, arising either from the productive cycle or from demand peaks on feast days (Christmas, Easter, etc.), it reveals significant changes in total livestock over the year. Also, agricultural labour is not subject to secrecy, given that it is collected and made available in groups, according to the legislation in force (Article 6 (4) (b) of the NSS Law).
Therefore, and also given the vast geographical area covered, no situations are envisaged in which the information released leads to direct or indirect identification of a certain agricultural holder, therefore there will be no statistical confidentiality treatment.

Dissemination of economic data, by type
Any issues related to the typology of holdings and economic data associated with physical data that are measurable in euro may be released, provided that they are based on aggregates. This information is currently already released as such, therefore this situation is also covered by the legislation in force.

For dissemination at parish level and for some variables, cells are suppressed if the number of holdings is less than 3.

See sub-categories below.

The academic community has special requirements as regards statistical data, especially in terms of the development of research and preparation of Masters and PhD theses.
Against this background, Statistics Portugal established a Protocol with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, with a view to facilitating access by researchers to the statistical data required for their activity (Protocol).
For this purpose, the interested researchers must be approved by the Office of Planning, Strategy, Assessment and International Relations, where they may obtain all the necessary information.

In Statistics Portugal there is a release calendar in our web portal (31 March 2021).

https://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_calendarios&xlang=en

The methodology is described in the EU handbook.

Every 10 years for census but every 3-4 years to all IFS/FSS.

See sub-categories below.

Agricultural Census 2019 - First Results - 2019

Agricultural Census - Final Results

See sub-categories below.

Agriculture Census - 2019, Statistics Portugal, issue year 2021

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable

Not applicable

See sub-category below.

Not available

Not requested.

See sub-categories below.

Not requested.

Title - Methodological document (DMET) - Agricultural census 2019 

Publisher - Statistics Portugal (INE-PT)/Department of Economic Statistics/Agriculture and Environment Statistics Office 

DMET version into force date: October 2019
DMET last update: February 2021

Please see the annex.

https://smi.ine.pt/DocumentacaoMetodologica?clear=True

Title - Manual de Instruções

Publisher - Statistics Portugal

Year - 2019

Please see the annexes.

Not applicable.

Within the statistical production process of Statistics Portugal, any statistical operation should be certified through ​​a methodological dossier validated by the whole organisational structure of Statistics Portugal ensuring compliance with the European Statistics Code of Practice (see the document attached).

See sub-categories below.

Statistics Portugal has a quality management system in place following, whenever convenient, the principles of the ISO 9001:2015 Standard, and having adopted a systematic and process-oriented approach in accordance with the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. This system comprises a wide range of instruments, methods, and activities covering process documentation, performance assessment, and user relations.

SP is part of the European Statistical System (ESS) and has adopted the European Statistics Code of Practice, since its first edition (2005), as firm guidance for the success of its mission. Since its last revision (November 2017), the Code comprises the Quality Declaration of the European Statistical System, 16 Principles and 84 indicators of best practices and standards for each of the Principles, defining the European benchmarks for the statistical activity, covering the institutional environment, statistical processes, and statistical outputs.

For further details on quality assurance at Statistics Portugal, please see the following link:

https://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_qualidade&xlang=en

Here are some examples of recent or ongoing quality assurance activities:

• Information Security Management System: the information managed by Statistics Portugal, including the procedures that support it, as well as the systems, applications and networks are valuable assets of society. By guaranteeing the confidentiality, integrity and/or availability of the information, Statistics Portugal ensures the credibility of the services it provides. Therefore, Statistics Portugal has assumed the objective of systematizing its Information Security Management System (ISMS) in alignment with the best international practices, namely ISO / IEC 27001: 2013 Standard. The ISMS is comprised of a set of policies and procedures that are available to Statistics Portugal staff and users.
• Statistical Production Process Handbook: The Statistical Production Process Handbook (3rd edition – V.2.0 – updated in 2020) describes the statistical production process systematically, following the principles and organization of version 5.1 of the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) (2019, UNECE), at the phase and sub-process levels. It also includes a higher level of detail through the identification of the main tasks and responsibilities associated with each of the sub-processes.
• Records Management System: Statistics Portugal is working on the development and implementation of a records management and process reengineering IT solution, which will render management and statistical production processes more efficient.
• ISO 9001:2015 Standard certification: Statistics Portugal is currently organizing information and studying the possibility of certifying Statistics Portugal Quality Management System in alignment with the ISO 9001:2015 Standard.

Not available.

Agriculture Ministry, Environmental Ministry, Farm Associations, public administration in general. the main purposes are related to draw/redraw policies (namely agricultural, regional, territorial cohesion, rural development, environmental) with sound, relevant and timeliness data.

The IFS was structured to make it possible to provide information on the characteristics defined for the farm structure survey (general characteristics, crop areas, livestock, agricultural buildings and structures, agricultural population and labour force, other non-agricultural activities and measures to support rural development).
Other characteristics (variables), or greater detail in mandatory characteristics pursuant to Community legislation, were also surveyed, namely irrigation and machinery and equipment.
The determination of the final version of the national characteristics to be included and the formulation of mandatory questions pursuant to Community legislation resulted from contacts with a number of entities, which contributed to defining the variables that would provide relevant statistical data with no excessive statistical burden on respondents. 

All users' needs are met.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Information on low- and zero prevalence variables is available on Eurostat's website.

Not applicable for Integrated Farm Statistics as the not collected variables, not-significant variables and not-existent variables are completed with 0.

See categories below.

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable. The data collection was based entirely on census.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

See sub-categories below.

The over-coverage rate is available in the annex. The over-coverage rate is unweighted.
The over-coverage rate is calculated as the share of ineligible holdings to the holdings designated for the core data collection. The ineligible holdings include those holdings with unknown eligibility status that are not imputed nor re-weighted for (therefore considered ineligible).
The over-coverage rate is calculated over the holdings in the main frame and if applicable frame extension, for which core data are sent to Eurostat. 

Not available.

Not requested.

See sub-categories below.

Not available.

The holders were asked about their holding neighbours whose identification was checked in the frame list. Local authorities were also consulted to provide identification of the new holders.

Not available.

Not available/Not applicable.

Cross-check with administrative registers 

See sub-categories below.

PT considers that variables are not affected by measurement errors.

The methodology used to avoid/minimise incorrect and/or incomplete data included:

• Interview techniques (interpretation of the questions) – questions would be posed to the interviewee in a way to avoid personal interpretations;
• Outline of the agricultural holding – on the occasion of the interview, the interviewer would always prepare an outline of the agricultural holding characterising it correctly, to be used as an auxiliary tool in subsequent analyses. The outline would be duly identified and attached to the questionnaire;
• Entry of “Observations” – the “Observations” field of the questionnaire should include all information deemed relevant by the interviewer, which would help to validate and analyse collected data after the interview. This prevented questionnaires from being returned and/or avoided subsequent contacts with the interviewee to confirm/justify the information.

See sub-categories below.

The unit non-response rate is in the annex of item 13.3.1.1. The unit non-response rate is unweighted.
The unit non-response rate is calculated as the share of eligible non-respondent holdings to the eligible holdings.  The eligible holdings include those holdings with unknown eligibility status which are imputed or re-weighted for (therefore considered eligible).
The unit non-response rate is calculated over the holdings in the main frame and if applicable frame extension, for which core data are sent to Eurostat.

Statistics Portugal doesn't carry out a non-response analysis.

For the mandatory variables, Statistics Portugal doesn't carry out any analysis. However, it is possible for two of the non-mandatory variables (volume of water for irrigation and for animal production) to estimate the non-response rate.

Not applicable.

Not available.

See sub-categories below.

Validation rules, actions by central office of monitoring assessment, analysis from supervisors of field chain.

Our IT system allows several levels of corrections, but only at a regional or central level it is possible to validate the corrections.

Not available.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

Time lag – first results: 12 months.

Time lag – final results: 15 months.

See sub-categories below.

See sub-categories below.

Not requested.

0 days

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable, because there are no mirror flows in Integrated Farm Statistics.

See sub-categories below.

No deviations.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

No differences.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

No deviations.

The information is available in the annex. 
The number of working hours and days in a year for a full-time job correspond to one annual working unit (AWU) in the country. One annual work unit corresponds to the work performed by one person who is occupied on an agricultural holding on a full-time basis. Annual working units are used to calculate the farm work on the agricultural holdings.

The information is available in the annex of item 15.1.4.1.1. 

The information is available in the annex of item 15.1.4.1.1. 

No deviations.

No deviations. For PT this variable is flagged M (variable does not exist - true zero).

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

No deviations.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

As any other holding.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

No deviations.

Not applicable.

No differences.

See sub-categories below.

No time series break since 1989.

See sub-categories below.

Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 newly considers agricultural holdings with only fur animals. However our country does not raise fur animals.

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

Legal personality of the agricultural holding

In IFS, there is a new class (“shared ownership”) for the legal personality of the holding compared to FSS 2016, which trigger fluctuations of holdings in the classes of sole holder holdings and group holdings.

Other livestock n.e.c.

In FSS 2016, there was a class for the collection of equidae. That has been dropped and equidae are included in IFS in "other livestock n.e.c."

Livestock units

In FSS 2016, turkeys, ducks, geese, ostriches and other poultry were considered each one in a separate class with a coefficient of 0.03 for all the classes except for ostriches (coefficient 0.035). In IFS 2020, the coefficients were adjusted accordingly, with turkeys remaining at 0.03, ostriches remaining at 0.35, ducks adjusted to 0.01, geese adjusted to 0.02 and other poultry fowls n.e.c. adjusted to 0.001.

Organic animals

While in FSS only fully compliant (certified converted) animals were included, in IFS both animals under conversion and fully converted are to be included.

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable to Integrated Farm Statistics, because there are no sub annual data collections in agriculture.

Not applicable, because Integrated Farm Statistics have no relevance for national accounts.

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable.

See sub-categories below.

Following the usual procedures, Portugal will integrate the IFS data into the other domains, namely crops and livestock statistics. It is expected that large variations will significantly decrease.

The data are internally consistent. This is ensured by the application of a wide range of validation rules.

See sub-categories below.

The co-ordination is made by the field chain (interviewers) since field work is distributed previously taking into account the location of the farm. Since 95% of the holdings have holders which are natural persons, there are few cases where the respondents have to answer multiple questionnaires with the same kind of questions.

Not available.

See sub-categories below.

Not available

Not available

Not available

Not available

As a rule, data in IFS are not subject to revisions.

Not relevant.

Not requested.

See sub-categories below.

See sub-categories below.

Base de Amostragem Agrícola

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable for 2019/2020.

Not applicable for 2019/2020.

Not applicable for 2019/2020.

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

See sub-categories below.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

See sub-categories below.

Statistics Portugal doesn't use administrative sources.

Statistics Portugal doesn't use administrative sources.

The information on innovative approaches and the quality methods applied is available on Eurostat's website.

The agricultural census is conducted every 10 years. The decennial agricultural census is complemented by sample or census-based data collections organised every 3-4 years in-between.

See sub-categories below.

Please find the questionnaire in annex.

See sub-categories below.

IT tools

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Covered under Data compilation.

Not applicable to Integrated Farm Statistics, because it collects structural data on agriculture.

See sub-categories below.

CAP – Common Agricultural Policy

CAPI –  Computer Assisted Personal Interview

CATI – Computer Assisted Telephone Interview

CAWI – Computer Assisted Web Interview

FSS – Farm Structure Survey

IACS – Integrated Administration and Control System

IFS – Integrated Farm Statistics

LSU – Livestock units

NACE – Nomenclature of Economic Activities

NUTS – Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics

PAPI – Paper and Pencil Interview

SO – Standard output

SP – Statistics Portugal

UAA – Utilised agricultural area

Too burdensome. Please streamline in further waves.