Recent Initiatives in UK Agriculture Surveys

1. Recent Initiatives in UK Agriculture Surveys Peter Helm and Julie Bartlett Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs United Kingdom

2. Location of Defra

3. The Defra Strategy Arrow Focussing the Department “One Planet Living” Mission Maintaining & enhancing the natural asset base Avoiding dangerous climate change High Level Goals September, 2004

4. Agriculture in the UK 2007 • 300,000 agricultural holdings in the UK • 200,000 holdings in England • 57,000 have no labour, 17,000 require <1 full time worker • 9% of holdings account for 41% of employment • 19% of holdings account for 87% of output • 25% of holdings account for 85% of farm area

5. Environmental impacts of agriculture • 7% of total greenhouse gas emissions • 60% of nitrates and 29% of phosphates in rivers • 66% of nitrous oxide emissions, 90% of ammonia emissions and <1% of carbon dioxide emissions.

6. Regular surveys run by Defra

7. FCAG Customers

8. Key Drivers for survey changes • Pressure to reduce compliance costs • Widespread feeling that agriculture is over surveyed in relation to its economic significance and size • Increasing “availability“ of administrative data • New data requirements on agri-environmental data • Competition from private sector organisations running own surveys • Need to improve response rates to reduce survey sample and costs

9. Initiatives taken to reduce survey burden June Survey (main survey) has greatest scope for improvement. Initiatives implemented are: • Increased sampling • Reduction in numbers of questions asked • Use of administrative data • Electronic data capture • Register improvements

10. Reduced Sampling fraction

11. Reduced numbers of questions Detailed form Summary form • 4 pages • 126 questions • 47,000 forms dispatched • 2 pages • 43 questions • 12,000 forms dispatched

12. Average number of questions asked on the survey form

13. Use of Administrative data Data potentially available for survey purposes • Single Farm payment data (field usage data) • Livestock movement records • Livestock register data

14. Electronic data captureWhole Farm Approach • Delivers surveys electronically • Data sharing prospects to reduce need for duplicate requests • Enables farmers to do other business • Hoping to recover to at least 10% electronic usage • Major savings on validation which can be done on-line

15. Improvements to farm register • Our Farm Survey register is the most comprehensive register of farm holdings in England • Closely linked to the register used by the Rural Payments Agency • Improved links with the Interdepartmental Business Register used by the Office for National Statistics

16. Response rates

17. Non-response survey

18. Non-response survey • Main reasons given for non-response to surveys: • No longer in farming • Information requested already provided to other parts of Defra • Too much paperwork • No benefit to the farmer • Farmers claim they did not receive the survey forms

19. Other initiatives to minimise burden/improve response rates Other initiatives we are considering include: • reviewing the collection of information at business rather than holding level • developing better links with industry organisations to encourage their members to respond on our behalf • setting up of a farmer’s panel to check questionnaires before issue • better marketing of survey results highlighting value • more joining up of surveys • using minimum thresholds to only target larger farm businesses

20. Agri environment data collectionFarm Practices Survey 2008 and beyond FPS 2007 • Currently collecting customer feedback on survey products • Possible future innovations include: • Investigating response rates across farm sizes, farm types and regions to detect possible bias • Make more use of past data for validation • Improve thresholds to match the topics covered • Survey topics include: • Water usage and water quality • Nutrient management • Cattle housing and slurry storage • The use of veterinary services • Economics of modern farming

21. Agri environment data collectionBritish Survey of Fertiliser Practices Fertiliser Application Rates Kg/Ha/ per year • Survey has been brought back in-house to: • Aid inter-survey comparisons • Allow better targeting of surveys • Allows better management of survey burdens

22. Agri environment data collectionFarm Business Survey • Detailed financial and physical data from farms • Agri-environment data collected includes: • Farm habitats, e.g. low input pasture, field corners, conservation headlands • Costs of key countryside maintenance i.e. creating and maintaining woodland, ponds & stone walls • Drivers for such expenditure • Areas of hedge and woodland planting

23. Conclusion • Pressure to reduce survey burdens on farmers whilst still providing valuable information on agriculture • New data needs are becoming more important and we have to adapt more “traditional” surveys to capture this new information • Many challenges and exciting times lie ahead

24. Any questions?