Statistics Iceland

Business statistics.

Borgartun 21A, 105 Reykjavik, Iceland

The Economic Accounts for Agriculture (EAA) provide detailed information on income from agricultural activity.

The methods are laid down in the Regulation (EC) 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

The EAA are 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 and they are detailed in Annex 1 of Regulation (EC) 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

The EAA is an integral part of the European system of accounts and therefore for their compilation the Eurostat's general classification of economic activities, NACE Rev. 2, is used.

See the detail below.

See sheets 3.2.1.1.(a) to 3.2.1.1.(c) in the attached Excel file 'Annex 1 - Components of the Production account - Output' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheets 3.2.1.2 (a) to 3.2.1.2 (c) in the attached Excel file 'Annex 2 - Components of the Production account - Intermediate consumption' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 3.2.1.3 in the attached Excel file 'Annex 3 - Components of the Generation of income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 3.2.1.4 in the attached Excel file 'Annex 4 - Components of the Entrepreneurial income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 3.2.1.5 in the attached Excel file 'Annex 5 - Elements of the Capital account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

The sector covers all units involved in agricultral production, even if some of those units have more important economic activities or if the purpose of some others is not commercial. However, kitchen gardens (producing for own-consumptions only) are not included. The list of agricultural activities charactersistic of the EAA corresponds to the seven groups of Division 01 of NACE Rev. 2 activities (01.1 to 01.7), with the following caveats:

- the inclusion of the production of wine and olive oil (exclusively using grapes and olives grown by the same holding)

- the 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).

A detailed methodology can be found in Annex I of Regulation (EC) 138/2004.

The EAA are satellite accounts of the European System of Accounts (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 account:

- the production account and

- the generation-of-income account

whose balancing items are value added and operating surplus, respectively.

Nevertheless, it should be possible to compile other accounts, at least in part, in so far as the relevant flows can be clearly attributed to them. The accounts in question are the following:

- 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 in the agricultural sector: these include output, intermediate consumption, gross and net value added, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), both in current prices and in constant 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 in current prices.

Three indicators of the economic performance of agriculture are defined in the EAA:

•Indicator A: Index of the real income of factors in agricultural per annual work unit.           
•Indicator B: Index of real net agricultural entrepreneurial income per unpaid annual work unit.          
•Indicator C: Net entrepreneurial income of agriculture.

Agricultural output is the total of agricultural products and the goods and services produced in inseparable non-agricultural secondary activities created 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, that is when produced and not when paid by the purchaser.

In the compilation of the EAA, output is progressively broken down in quantity terms (see paragraph 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. 

Intermediate consumption represents the value of all goods and services used as inputs in the production process, excluding fixed assets whose consumption 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 excluding 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.

In the case of the generation of income account, the distributive transactions relate to other taxes on production, other subsidies on production and the compensation of employees.

For details please see sheet 3.4.3 - Other questions in the attached Excel file 'Annex 3 - Components of the Generation of income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

The entrepre­neurial income account records certain types of property income (mainly land rents, interest and property income attributed to insurance policy holders).

For details please see sheet 3.4.4 - Other questions in the attached Excel file 'Annex 4 - Components of the Entrepreneurial income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

In addition to Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), the capital account records distributive trans­actions corresponding to aid for investment and other capital transfers.

The overall unit is the agricultural sector. However, 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, as a rule, institutional units must be broken-down into smaller and more homogeneous units with regard to the kind of production (local kind-of-activity units/local KAUs) are intended to meet this requirement (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 must be 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, (the unit currently used for statistical studies of agriculture (censuses, surveys of the structure of agricultural holdings), is the local KAU most appropriate to the agricultural industry (even though certain other units, such as wine or olive oil cooperatives, or units performing contract work, etc., have to be included in it). Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that 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.

In order 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 technico-economic kind. This requirement means that as a rule institutional units must be partitioned into smaller and more homogeneous units with regard to the kind of production. Local kind-of-activity units (local KAUs) are intended to meet this requirement as a first but practically-oriented operational approach

Although the ESA gives pre-eminence to local KAUs, the unit best suited to analyse the production process is the unit of homogeneous production (UHP). This unit is used to analyse inputs and outputs, since it corresponds exactly to a type of activity. Institutional units are thus divided into as many UHPs as there are activities (other than ancillary). By grouping these units of homogeneous production it is possible to break down the economy into 'pure' (homogeneous) branches. A UHP cannot, as a rule, be directly observed. Therefore, the accounts of homogeneous branches cannot be compiled on the basis of groups of UHPs. The ESA describes a method for compiling these accounts.

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 must only be included if they cannot be separated from its agricultural activities.

The agricultural holding, which is the unit currently used for statistical studies of agriculture (censuses, surveys of the structure of agricultural holdings), is the local KAU most appropriate to the agricultural industry.In addition to agricultural holdings, the agricultural industry comprises units made up of groups of producers (e.g. cooperatives) which produce wine and olive oil and specialised units which provide machines, material and labour for the performance of contract work.

Years 2007-2020

Accounts for year n are calculated at current prices and at prices of year n-1. The concept 'base period' is not applied.

Accounts data: National currency (ISK), values in milliions ISK

Agricultural labour input data: number in 1000 AWU

Calendar year.

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

National legislation: 

The main law and regulations for Statistics Iceland can be seen at:  https://statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/laws-and-regulations/

Statistics Iceland.

Statistics Iceland.

Statistical data are published as database tables in the PxWeb. In Iceland, the EAA are published once a year, at the same time as the second preliminary data of the current year are submitted to Eurostat. Releases and database tables are published in Icelandic and English.

https://statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/quality-and-security-policy/

In general, Statistics Iceland only grants access to microdata to authorized researchers, and then securely through the electronic research environment of Statistics Iceland. All such access is subject to strict security and confidentiality rules. No confidencial data is transmitted to Eurostat.

Statistical information is published in accordance with an approved release calendar.

https://statice.is/publications/news-archive/advance-release-calendar/

https://statice.is/publications/rules-on-statistical-releases/

Yearly

https://www.statice.is/publications/news-archive/agriculture/production-value-of-agriculture-2021/

https://www.statice.is/publications/news-archive/agriculture/production-value-of-agriculture-2021/

https://statice.is/statistics/business-sectors/agriculture/financial-accounts/

Only aggregated data is published.

not relevant.

http://hagstofan.s3.amazonaws.com/media/public/2020/a8e9766b-be81-4f0d-95ad-8dcacdd2aa9a.pdf

Short notes exist in icelandic.

Not available.

See https://statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/quality-and-security-policy/

The difference between the preliminary results and the final figures have not been estimated so in that way a quality assessment has not been made for EAA.

The Ministry of Food, Fisheries and Agriculter, university, farmers and farmers association and other users including media.

A formal survey has not been conducted, but the data is said to be good.

There has been no request for more statistics.

As the data comes from many sources, it is very likely that there will be statistical errors.

Data for animals and animal products are available on a monthly basis, so for these parts the predicted values are very close to the final result.

However, data for cereal are only available annually. Data for some types of vegetables is available on a monthly basis, while for others quarterly, so it is necessary to use indices for forecasting. Therefore, it is not unlikely that there is some difference between the prediction and the final result. The magnitude of the difference has not been assessed.

Data used to estimate total intermediate consumption are mostly available annually and in some instances not very well determined. So indices are needed for forecasting There is likely a high probability of error.

Not applicable to EAA compilation.

Not applicable to EAA compilation.

Results are usually published a few days after they have been submitted to Eurostat and accepted. Due to employees changes, this was delayed for the 2020 data.

The data is usually submitted on time, but the submission of the final assessment for the year 2020 was submitted just over 2 months later.

To be assessed by Eurostat

The data is comparable for the whole time series 2007-2020.

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EAA data is not used in the National Accounts. However, data from National Accounts is used in the EAA, for example FISIM.

Internal consistency is ensured by using the same data sources and the same methods.

The cost of collecting and processing the data is a full-time equivalent unit. Emphasis is placed on automating data collection.

Burden does not apply as no surveys are conducted in relation to EAA.

Statistics Iceland revises published figures in accordance with the https://statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/revision-policy/

A benchmark year has not been set.

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See sheet 18.1.1 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 1 - Components of the Production account - Output' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

For detailed explanations on data sources used, please see remarks under concept 18.1.3.

See sheet 18.1.3 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 2 - Components of the Production account - Intermediate consumption' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.1.4 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 3 - Components of the Generation of income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.1.5 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 4 - Components of the  Entrepreneurial income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheets 18.1.6 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 5 - Elements of the Capital account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

Monthly, quarterly and annual.

Data collection and EAA updates are intertwined throughout the year.

In the final assessment (September) most often only data from the previous year is updated, however when needed data for earlier years is revised, but then it is reported. In 2020 the whole FISIM series was updated due to a benchmark audit of the national accounts. Few other series were updated 2016-2019.

Which data series are being used is specified in each annex. In general it can be said that
- data on animal production, wool and vegetables are collected monthly;
- prices from slaugherhouses are collected monthly;
- vegetable prices are collected quarterly;
- wool price is yearly;
- cereal statistics is collected on an annual basis, but efforts are being made to collect it more frequently;
- data on forage plants is collected yearly;
- Price indices are monthly, while indices in the pricing basis from a cow farm is quarterly.
- Tax reports are annual and VAT data are semi-annual.
- Foreign trade statistics is gathered on a montly basis;

Data validation is still manual. The target is consistency, completeness and outliers.

Data for the years up to and including 2020 were stored in excel files and the data processing was done in excel too. Work is now underway to transfer data and data processing to R and also to build up data schemas in SQL.

See sheet 18.5.1.1 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 1 - Components of the Production account - Output' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See also Excel file 'Annex 6 - Calculation methods output'.

See sheet 18.5.1.2 (a) and 18.5.1.2 (b) of the attached Excel file 'Annex 2 - Components of the Production account - Intermediate consumption' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.1.3 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 3 - Components of the Generation of income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.1.4 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 4 - Components of the Entrepreneurial income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheets 18.5.1.5 'Annex 5 - Elements of the Capital account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheets 18.5.2.1 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 1 - Components of the Production account - Output' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.2.2 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 2 - Components of the Production account - Intermediate consumption' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.2.3 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 3 - Components of the Generation of income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.2.4 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 4 - Components of the Entrepreneurial income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.2.5 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 5 - Elements of the Capital account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file. 

See the attached Excel file 'Annex 7 - Numerical examples' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See the attached Excel file 'Annex 7 - Numerical examples' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See the attached Excel file 'Annex 7 - Numerical examples' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See the attached Excel file 'Annex 7 - Numerical examples' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See the attached Excel file 'Annex 7 - Numerical examples' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.4.1 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 1 - Components of the Production account - Output' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.4.2 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 2 - Components of the Production account - Intermediate consumption' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.5.5 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 2 - Components of the Production account - Intermediate consumption' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

Calculation of compensation of VAT on Other taxes on production:

Calculation of compensation of VAT on Other subsidies on production:

See sheet 18.6.1 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 1 - Components of the Production account - Output' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.6.2 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 2 - Components of the Production account - Intermediate consumption' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.6.3 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 3 - Components of the Generation of income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.6.4 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 4 - Components of the Entrepreneurial income account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

See sheet 18.6.5 of the attached Excel file 'Annex 5 - Elements of the capital account' in the section Annexes at the end of the file.

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