Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación (MAPA) / Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and Food.

Subdirección General de Análisis, Coordinación y Estadística / Sub-Directorate General of Analysis, Coordination and Statistics

Paseo Infanta Isabel, 1 28071 Madrid

See sub-concepts below.

The methodology applied in the elaboration of the statistics is adjusted to quality methods and requirement as established by:

-           Regulation (EC) Nº 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25th November 2009 concerning statistics on pesticide.

-           Regulation (EC) Nº 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21st October 2009 concerning the plant protection products on the market that repeals and replaces Directive 79/117/EEC and 91/414/EEC of the Council.

-           Commission Regulation (EU) Nº 656/2011 of 7th July 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) Nº 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides, as regards definitions and list of active substances.

-          Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1264/2014 of 26^th  November 2014. Amending Regulation (EU) Nº 408/2011 implementing Regulation (EC) Nº 1185/2009 of the European Parliament of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides, as regards transmission format.

-          Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/269 of 16 February 2017 amending Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides, as regards the list of active substances.

The Sub-Directorate General involved in the Project are:

The directory used is an update of the database used for the “Encuesta de Comercialización” (ECF) in 2018. The new authorized holders are introduced in the database and those who lost the condition of authorized holder are deleted.

The transformation matrix for the quantity of product into quantity of active substance was provided by the S.G. de Sanidad e Higiene Vegetal y Forestal. As in the previous years:

1.- The survey is aimed only to the authorized holders, however, there is a special question for those respondents that, though they are not authorized holders, they have been transferred the commercialization of the product by them.

2.- The possibility of sending the requested data through the application by filling out to the electronic questionnaire or sending a text file designed by S.G. Análisis, Coordinación y Estadística with all the necessary information. In the latter case, the survey respondents could find an informative note explaining the characteristics of the text file and asks them to check the data in the electronic questionnaire.

3.- Information about the time spent filling in the electronic questionnaire

It was updated the data base during March and April, using the following information:

• The phithosanitary registry at 31th December of 2018.
• The expiration date of the products which ended in 2018.
• Of those expired products whose deadline for sales ends after 31th December of 2018.

Once updated the database at the level of the authorized holders and products, the survey was sent by email, facilitating the web direction where they could fill in the questionnaire, and remembering the mandatory of the response and data remittance. They were also provided with a login user and a personalized password for each firm, and a number of consulting support for any questions that they could have.

The data set comprises the annual sales of active substances contained in plant protection products placed on the national market for one calendar year according to the Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 as amended by Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/269 of 16 February 2017 as regards the list of active substances.

There is no specific legislation for pesticide statistics in Spain but there is obligation in all those statistics included in the National Statistical Plan under Law 13/1996, December 30th. All statistics under EU regulation are included in this Plan. 

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The data are expressed in kilograms of active substances.

The classification of the active substances in plant protection products is annexed (Annex III) to Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/269 of 16 February 2017 amending Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides.

The active substances are classified according to chemical and functional similarity. Aggregation levels in descending order comprise: major groups, categories of products, chemical classes and active substances.

The statistics cover the wholesale and retail trade sector operating in placing plant protection products on the market.

All authorisation holders of plant protection products report the quantity of all active substances that are placed on the market nationally (incl. import and export data).

Coverage of the statistics cover mainly economic sectors under NACE 20.20 “Manufacture of pesticides and other agrochemical products”. We don’t have information about the size of the firms.

This data collection comprises pesticide sales data based on the term 'placing on the market' as defined in Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market. The scope of the Regulation covers plant protection products and their active substances as can be seen from the key terms of the act immediately below:

 Plant protection products: products consisting of or containing active substances, safeners or synergists, and intended for one of the following uses:

• protecting plants or plant products against all harmful organisms or preventing the action of such organisms, unless the main purpose of these products is considered to be for reasons of hygiene rather than for the protection of plants or plant products;
• influencing the life processes of plants, such as substances influencing their growth, other than as a nutrient;
• preserving plant products, in so far as such substances or products are not subject to special Community provisions on preservatives;
• destroying undesired plants or parts of plants, except algae unless the products are applied on soil or water to protect plants;
• checking or preventing undesired growth of plants, except algae.

Active substances: substances or micro-organisms, including viruses, having general or specific action against harmful organisms or on plants, parts of plants or plant products.

Quantity: implies kilograms of the active substances sold.

Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishes a common framework for the systematic production of Community statistics on the placing on the market and agricultural use of those pesticides which are plant protection products as defined in Article 2 (a)(i). The statistics shall apply to the annual amounts of pesticides active substances placed on the market in accordance with Annex I and the quantity of active substances shall be aggregated according to the list in Annex III (as amended).

The authorized holders of pesticide products.

The authorized holders of pesticide products.

See sub-concepts below.

The entire territory of the country.

Include Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla.

2011-2019

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because it is not based on an index number of time series.

See sub-concepts below.

See sub-concepts below.

Not applicable.

The authorized holders of pesticide products.

Annually.

The statistics on the placing on the market of pesticides covers all authorized holders, independently whether their main location is inside or outside of the national territory.

The framework (list of authorized holders, the authorized products of each holder and the transformation matrix product quantity in quantity of active substance) were provided by S.G. Sanidad e Higiene Vegetal y Forestal.

The information quantity products place in market is provided by respondents authorized holders of the products. These products are preprinted in the questionnaire. Once the marketed amount is known, the transformation matrix "product" quantity in quantity of "active substance" is used.

Data from statistics on plan protection on market were collected and entered in one phase over 4-month period (April-May-June-July 2020). During this period surveyed respondents were able to complete the questionnaires by two options, the first one is online (CAWI) and the second through telephone calls (CATI), only if asked specifically by the respondent. I has also allowed the informant upload the data by a text file, to the web application.

Addition to these options, there is a support telephone number and an email, in order to facilitate the filling in the questionnaire.

The survey started by sending and individual and personalized, when the informant is known, e-mail to each of the respondent companies. This e-mail announced the start of the 2019 Pesticide Sales Survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and informed about the aim of the survey, which is to collect those active substances contained in products sold in Spain by companies, with an agricultural destination.

The email provided with 1) the web link where they can find the 2018 and previous years statistics published; 2) information about the updating of the products of which the company was authorized holder in 2019 based on the Register of Phytosanitary Products of the MAPA and the possibility of indicating any discrepancy between the products included in the questionnaire;  As soon as it is verified that it has really been an error, it is usually corrected within one day at the latest, and 3) a web link with a user name and password to access the questionnaire. The questionnaire is not public and is specific to each company.

The questionnaire has the following structure:

a) Company identification data (Name, tax identification number for Spanish companies, address, postcode, company e-mail and telephone number). Informants have the possibility of correcting any of the data if needed.

b) Identification data of the respondent (Name/ Telephone/e-mail).

c) Section where the companies have to declare the sales of the plant protection products sold in Spain, including the exceptional authorisations for the year 2019. Here, the company finds its updated list of authorized products (registration number/name) in 2019.

d) Section where companies have to declare the sales of plant protection products of which they have not been authorized holders in 2019. To do this, the company has a drop-down menu where they can select these products.

e) Section where they can make any observations and where they can also report on the time used to complete the survey (Hours/Minutes/Seconds).

The maximum time limit for filling the questionnaire in is 15 days since the reception of the first email. In any case, as our main objective is to obtain the data, companies may ask us for a delay. We also schedule 2 reminders after the time limit for those companies that did not answer. In the end, all the companies sent the complete questionnaire.

In case of refusals to answer the survey no penalties are foreseen. However, we had no refusals to answer.

During the collection and recording of the data, they underwent a dual check, with a quality control of recording and control of the data supplied.

The CAWI programming incorporated the same error control as the questionnaire in the pretest phase, CAWI process could only be completed if the data contained no errors. In any case a manual review was also performed by the survey personal to ensure that everything was correct.

The following steps are used to validate the data:

1. The substance-to-substance variation rate is calculated by comparing the data from the 2018 survey and the 2019 survey. If the variation of substance quantity exceeds 100%, the traceability of substance/product/company is studied and the possible causes are analyzed, The companies and products were re-contacted to verify whether the information provided was correct or not. This re-contact was done by telephone or by e-mail.

2. The results were checked with main stakeholders (S.G de Sanidad e Higiene Vegetal y Forestal and the Business Association for Plant Protection) before their final approval.

In this section we describe the data compilation process, i.e. operations performed on data to derive new information according to a given set of rules.

Computation of aggregates:

Once the final data are available for submission to EUROSTAT, the quantities of active substances are rounded to two decimal places and then summed up to obtain the chemical classes, then these are summed to obtain the product categories and these in turn are summed to obtain the main groups.

Conversion of unit:

For simplicity, the equivalence litre equals kilogramme.

Imputation (= process of replacing missing data):

Data are imputed only in the case of Spanish companies, which do not respont the survey,  by increasing the value of the active substances in 2018 by the rate of variation at constant population (set of common companies in 2018 and 2019) of the rest of the firms.

Describe the likely impact of imputation:

In all the years that the survey has been carried out, no imputation of data has been made because 100% of these companies have answered the survey.

There has been no imputation in the 2019 survey.

Outlier detection:

No outliers have been detected.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is not based on time series.

See sub-concepts below.

See sub-concepts below.

The relevance of the survey is high because it allows to get statistical data on pestice sales to evaluate the impact of the public policies and calculating relevant indicators of health and environnment risks associated with pesticide use.

The satisfaction degreee is high due to the meetings held with internal Ministry users and external users as for instance the associations related with the pesticide sector that kept a high level of interest on the topic, to stablish appropiate concepts, definitions and classifications to reflect the reality and adjust to the users demand.

The customer satisfaction degree is high since before starting the project. There were meetings with internal users of the Ministry and with external users as for example relevant pesticides industry associations were very interested in the project. These meetings are still maintained, each time a survey is finished, in order to improve future surveys.

A quantitative mechanism to measure the user satisfaction has not yet be implemented.

The data collection covers all active substances of plant protection products placed on the national market and the information of all authorisation holders.

The survey is adjusted to quality requirement as established by Regulation (EC) Nº 1185/2009 of The European Parliament and in the "Plan de Acción Nacional para el uso sostenible de los productos fitosanitarios" (PAN) developed according to the Spanish Real Decreto 1311/2012.

100%

See sub-concepts below.

Not applicable.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is not based on samples, but covers the whole statistical population of authorisation holders and plant protection products placed on the national market.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is not based on samples, but covers the whole statistical population of authorisation holders and plant protection products placed on the national market.

The information of this section is developed in the following points.

The reference period considered is the year 2019.

The previous directory contained 180 authorized holders, but 1 was not considered because it changed its activity.

The initial framework presented overcoverage problems, but it was corrected before carrying out the fieldwork. And 9 new Holders.

In summary, from the directory we have the following information:

Total Number of holders in the first Framework 180

Total Number of holders in the final Framework 188

Total Number of holders ceased activity is 1

Total Number of New Holders 9

The survey framework is based only on authorised holders in Spain who sell their products to agriculture and there are no duplications. The over-coverage-rate is 0%.

Additionally, there is fluid communication between the statistic unit and the respondents. They are provided with support by telephone and e-mail in order to resolve any type of doubt when declaring quantities of products that could be duplicated. In addition, a manual substance-by-substance check is carried out to detect any possible duplication. This can only be detected if two or more companies have sold the same amount of substance.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics as the data stem from one source.

Main source of measurement errors detected is due to updating of the list of products. To avoid or diminish this error, the personalized company's questionnaire has been updated using the Register of Phytosanitary Products of MAPA. However, if the respondent finds any discrepancy between the products included in the questionnaire, both in the part of the questionnaire referring to their own products and in the drop-down menu that allows them to select those products that they have sold and of which they are not the holders.

Second source of measurement errors is duplications. In this case, when the firm does not sell directly some or all their products, they are asked to report the names of their distributors and include only the quantities of products sold to the distributors who are not authorized sellers in Spain, in order to avoid unwanted duplicated information.

Efforts to prevent measurement errors focus on the personalized and direct communication and feedback between the statistic unit and the companies.

The information of this section is developed in the following points

Next table shows response/non response percentage according to main location:

Note 1:Non response for domestic holder is estimated by updating the quantity of active substance sold by the firm in the last survey by the rate of change (constant population) of such substance. There were not any correcton of unit non-response for foreing holders.

Note 2: A domestic holder is based inside of the national territory while a foreign holder is based outside of the national territory. Also a foreign holder is considered domestic when it has a filial based inside of the national territory.

The percentage of missing answers to each item or the items in total (item means sold active substance) is 0%, meaning that all active substances sold are covered by the data collection. 

During the processing of the data, they underwent a data validation, with a quality control of recording and control of the data supplied.

The same steps as those used in 3.4 for validation are implemented to check for the processing errors.

Also, the results were checked with main stakeholders (S.G de Sanidad e Higiene Vegetal y Forestal and the Business Association for Plant Protection) before their final approval.

There was not imputation of item-non response because the application (electronic questionnaire) does not allow missing values, outliers and inconsistencies. When an outlier was detected the respondent was recontacted. That happens in very few cases (less than 0,1%)

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is not based on estimations.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the reported data on plant protection products covers the whole year.

There is no scheduled revision for revising the data after they are sent to Eurostat.

However, in the need of handling an unplanned revision required to correct a mistake, Eurostat and users are informed with an explanatory note and new corrected data are disseminated. All the new information is published in the web.

See 6.5

The average size of data revision is 0. No scheduled revisions are planned and no mistakes have been detected.

See sub-concepts below.

According to the Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009, the data is published by Eurostat 15 months after the end of the reference year and the national quality report 20 months after the end of the reference year.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics as the data and national quality reports are only published once in a final result.

Data have been published 15 months after the last day of the reference year.

According to the Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009, data must be transmitted until 30 December of the year t+1, and national quality reports until 31 March of the year t+2.

Punctuality has been fulfilled.

There are zero days between the delivery/release date of data and the target date on which they were scheduled for delivery/release.

Not applicable, there has been no delay.

See sub-concepts below.

Data are collected on a country level (NUTS 0). They are not comparable on a regional level. The geographical comparability between countries is evaluated by Eurostat.

Not applicable, because there are no mirror flows in pesticide sales statistics.

Active substances for data before 2016 have not yet been reclassified for Spain - there is break in time series in 2016. Therefore the pesticide sales statistics for Spain is comparable:

• from 2011 to 2015; and
• from 2016 onwards.

4

At the moment there is no other surveys collecting this kind of data. Not applicable.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is annual.

Not applicable, because it is not related to national accounts.

There are not any lack of coherence in the output of statistical process itself.

See sub-concepts below.

At the moment there are no New Releases.

The final survey results, the methodology details the background, aims, concepts and definitions, units of measurement and quality report will be also available free of charge to the public on the Ministry web page, only available in Spanish in the following link:

 https://www.mapa.gob.es/es/estadistica/temas/estadisticas-agrarias/agricultura/estadisticas-medios-produccion/fitosanitarios.aspx 

Here under the title:

"Encuesta de Comercialización de Productos Fitosanitarios"

The user could find all the statistical information related to the sales surveys of each year clicking on the folder with the corresponding year (from 2011 to 2019). Inside of each folder the user could find different types of charts which give quality and quantity information of the data, a summary with the main results and the quality report. 

The tables are presented (Excel format) with the relevant information by different categories of pesticides (Fungicides and Bactericides, Herbicides, Haulm Destructors and Moss Killers, Insecticides and Acaricides, Mollusquicides, Plant Growth regulators and Others) and with their respective subcategories always in accordance to statistical confidencitiality and in accordance to the Annex III of Regulation (EC) Nº 2017/269 of the European Parliament and of the council. The user could find these tables in the following web link:

 https://www.mapa.gob.es/es/estadistica/temas/estadisticas-agrarias/agricultura/estadisticas-medios-produccion/fitosanitarios.aspx 

under the title "Encuesta de Comercialización de Productos Fitosanitarios"

Not known

Microdata are not yet available to general public. Specific enquiries are free of charge and will be attended in accordance to statistical confidentiality. Users can do it by e-mail (ecupf@mapa.es and sgapc@mapa.es) or by an official registry  (https://sede.administracion.gob.es/PAG_Sede/ServiciosElectronicos/RegistroElectronicoComun.html - Only in Spanish)

There is an available general electronic mail (ecupf@mapa.es and sgapc@mapa.es)  where the user can submit questions, comments or request on a specific enquiries. In the last case, only data will be provided under the established rules of confidentiality.

The methodology applied in the elaboration of the statistics is adjusted to quality methods and requirement as established by Regulation (EC) Nº1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25^th November 2009 concerning statistics on pesticide, Regulation (EC) Nº1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21^st October 2009 concerning the plant protection products on the market that repeals and replaces Directive 79/117/EEC and 91/414/EEC of the Council and the Commission Regulation (EU) Nº2017/269 of 16 February 2017 implementing Regulation(EC) Nº1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides, as regards list of active substances.

For elaborating this Quality report we have used like reference the following document:

European Statistical System handbook for quality and metadata reports - 2020 edition

(https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-manuals-and-guidelines/-/KS-GQ-19-006)

Not requested.

Not requested.

Cost

The estimated budget credit necessary to fund this statistic is 14.340€

Burden

The respondent burden is an important issue both qualitatively and quantitatively.

1.- Qualitative point of view.

Until now it cannot evaluated the cost to the respondent related to search and gathering of information as well as the filling in the electronic questionnaire.

2.- Quantitative point of view.

The average time spent in the filling in the questionnaire has been 52 min  16 seconds.

An effort has been made to guaranty that most of the information required in the questionnaire came from administrative registers. Furthermore, it has been achieved the respondents automatically found all the products they held without any need to incorporate them to the application manually.

On the other hand, the authorized holders have provided the possibility to upload the date to the application through text-files.

Statistics supplied to the Agriculture and Fishery, Food and Environment Ministry are protected by statistical confidentiality.

Statistical confidentiality is a mechanism for the confidence and reassurance of respondents that protects data obtained for statistical purposes.

Chapter III of the Government Statistics Act of 9 May 1989 (https://www.boe.es/eli/es/l/1989/05/09/12 - only available in Spanish) regulates all aspects of statistical confidentiality. According to this legislation:

• Any personal data procured by statistical offices shall be protected by statistical confidentiality.
• All statistical stall are under a duty to preserve statistical confidentiality. The duty of statistical confidentiality shall survive after people bound by such duty end their occupational activities or their connection with the statistical units.

Active substances are used in commercial products by 3 less authorised holders are marked as confidential. The rule has been extended to groups in the following way:

1.- Groups formed by just one confidential substance are confidential.

2.- Groups formed by two active substances are confidential if 1 or 2 substances are confidential.

3.- Groups formed by three active substances are confidential if 1 or 2 substances are confidential.

4.- Groups formed by more than three active substances are confidential if only one active substance is confidential.

And also, if a firm markets, at least 85% the quantity sold of a certain active substance, it will be considered confidential.

This is the tenth year that the Ministry carries on this project.

Any improvements will be implemented in future statistics to increase the quality of information, as indicated elsewhere in this report. In any case the results are good.