A transparent, comprehensive and reliable statistical knowledge base is necessary to design, implement, monitor, evaluate and review Union policies related to agriculture, in particular the common agricultural policy (CAP), including rural development measures, as well as Union policies relating to, inter alia, the environment, climate change adaptation and mitigation, land use, regions, public health, food safety, plant protection, sustainable use of pesticides, veterinary medicinal usage and the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Those statistics can also be useful for the purposes of monitoring and assessment of the impact of agriculture on pollinators and vital soil organisms.
(2)
The collection of statistical data, in particular on agricultural input and output, should aim, inter alia, to inform an evidence-based decision-making process with updated, high-quality and accessible data, in particular the data necessary for the development of agro-environmental indicators, and to support and evaluate the progress of the European Green Deal with the related Farm to Fork Strategy and the Biodiversity Strategy, the zero pollution action plan and the action plan for organic production in the Union, and future CAP reforms. A key element for the achievement of the European Green Deal objectives is the transition towards multifunctional agriculture capable of producing safe and sufficient food while providing positive environmental outputs.
(3)
High-quality harmonised, coherent and comparable statistical data are important for the assessment of the state and trends of agricultural input and output in the Union in order to provide meaningful and precise data on the environmental and economic impact of agriculture and on the pace of the transition to more sustainable agricultural practices. The data collected should also relate to the functioning of markets and food security, so as to ensure access to sufficient and high-quality food, and to the assessment of the sustainability as well as the environmental, economic and social impacts and performance of Union and national policies, as well as to the assessment of the sustainability and impact of the development of new business models. Those data include, but are not limited to, livestock and meat statistics, the production and use of eggs and the production and use of milk and milk products. Statistics on the area, yield and production of arable crops, vegetables, permanent crops and grasslands and commodity balances are also important. Moreover, statistics on the sales and use of plant protection products, fertilisers and veterinary medicinal products, in particular antibiotics in feeding stuffs, are needed.
(4)
An international evaluation of agricultural statistics led to the creation of a global strategy of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for improving agricultural and rural statistics. That global strategy was endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2010. European agricultural statistics should, where appropriate, follow the recommendations of that global strategy.
(5)
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) establishes a legal framework for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics based on common statistical principles. That Regulation sets out quality criteria and refers to the need to minimise the response burden on survey respondents and to contribute to the more general objective of reducing the administrative burden.
(6)
The Strategy for Agricultural Statistics for 2020 and beyond, endorsed by the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) in November 2015, envisages the adoption of two framework regulations covering all aspects of Union legislation on agricultural statistics, with the exception of economic accounts for agriculture (EAA). This Regulation is one of those two framework regulations and should complement the framework regulation which has already been adopted, namely Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3).
(7)
European statistics on agricultural input and output are currently collected, produced and disseminated on the basis of a number of legal acts. The current legal framework does not provide proper consistency across the different statistical domains, nor does it promote an integrated approach towards the development, production and dissemination of agricultural statistics designed to cover the economic and environmental aspects of agriculture. This Regulation should replace those legal acts for the purposes of harmonisation and comparability of information and, to ensure consistency and coordination across European agricultural statistics, facilitate the integration and streamlining of the corresponding statistical processes and enable a more holistic approach. It is therefore necessary to repeal those legal acts, namely Regulations (EC) No 1165/2008 (4), (EC) No 543/2009 (5) and (EC) No 1185/2009 (6) of the European Parliament and of the Council and Council Directive 96/16/EC (7). The numerous related European Statistical System’s (ESS) agreements and ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ between the national statistical institutes (NSIs) and the Commission (Eurostat) on data transmission should be integrated into this Regulation where there has been evidence that the data fulfil user needs, that the agreed methodology works and that the data are of appropriate quality.
(8)
The statistics required in accordance with Commission Regulation (EC) No 617/2008 (8) have been collected within the ESS, meeting some but not all of its quality standards. Those statistics support Union and national policies in the longer term and should be integrated as European statistics to ensure the availability and quality of the data. In order to avoid double reporting from the Member States, the statistical requirements under that Regulation should be deleted.
(9)
A large part of the agricultural area at Union level consists of grasslands. The production of those areas was not considered to be important in the past, so no production data have been included in crop statistics. As the impact of grasslands and ruminants on the environment has become more important due to climate change, statistics on grassland production including animal grazing are now needed.
(10)
For the purposes of European agricultural statistics, the feasibility of maximising the use of pre-existing data collected under CAP obligations, without creating new obligations and administrative burden, should be assessed.
(11)
For the purposes of harmonisation and comparability of information on agricultural input and output with information on the structure of agricultural holdings and to further implement the Strategy for Agricultural Statistics for 2020 and beyond, this Regulation should complement Regulation (EU) 2018/1091.
(12)
Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (9) does not cover agricultural price statistics, but their availability and coherence with the EAA should be ensured. Statistics on agricultural input and output should therefore cover statistics on agricultural input prices that are coherent with the EAA. In order to allow EAA calculations and comparable price indices, agricultural output price data need to be available in Member States.
(13)
In light of the European Green Deal, the CAP and the objective of reducing dependence on pesticides, it is important to provide for high-quality annual statistics on the use of plant protection products in relation to environmental, health and economic issues. The lack of electronic records of the professional use of plant protection products, which could be used for statistical purposes, at Union level is a major obstacle to increasing the periodicity of data collection on the use of plant protection products in agriculture from once every five years to once per year. In order to give the NSIs time to prepare for the production of annual statistics on the use of plant protection products on a permanent basis, provision should be made in this Regulation for a transitional regime.
(14)
Data regarding the placing on the market and use of pesticides to be submitted pursuant to Directive 2009/128/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (10) and Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (11) should be used in accordance with the relevant provisions of that Directive and of that Regulation for the purposes of the requirements of this Regulation. The data disseminated on plant protection products should include the active substances placed on the market and used in agricultural activities by crop and its related treated areas.
(15)
Comparable statistics from all Member States on agricultural input and output are important to determine the development of the CAP and to monitor the CAP’s implementation through the national Strategic Plans in view of the CAP’s contribution to the targets of the European Green Deal. Standard classifications and common definitions should therefore be used insofar as possible for variables.
(16)
The coherence, comparability and interoperability of the data and the uniformity of the reporting formats are prerequisites for the preparation of European agricultural statistics, in particular as regards the efficiency of the collection, processing and dissemination procedures and the quality of the results.
(17)
The data needed to compile statistics should be collected in a manner that minimises costs and administrative burden on respondents, including farmers, small and medium-sized enterprises and Member States. It is therefore necessary to identify possible owners of sources of the required data and ensure that those sources can be used for statistics.
(18)
The data sets to be transmitted cover several statistical domains. In order to maintain a flexible approach that allows the statistics to be adapted when data requirements change, only the domains, topics and detailed topics should be specified in the basic regulation, with the detailed data sets specified by means of implementing acts. The collection of the detailed data sets should not impose significant additional costs which result in a disproportionate and unjustified burden on respondents and on Member States.
(19)
A variable in a data set for European statistics on agricultural input and output can include several dimensions, such as organic farming and regional level dimensions. The organic farming dimension refers to production and products in accordance with the principles set out in Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council (12). The regional level dimension should be provided in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council (13). In order to decrease the burden on Member States when providing data under this Regulation and to ensure predictability as to which data are to be collected, the detailed topics and the applicable dimensions should be specified in the Annex to this Regulation. In that Annex, the word ‘applicable’ should be introduced with respect to the detailed topics for which the organic farming or regional level dimension, or both, is required.
(20)
Organic production is becoming increasingly important as an indicator of sustainable agricultural production systems. Statistical data on organic production are essential to monitor progress of the action plan for organic production in the Union. It is therefore necessary to ensure that available statistics on organic production, including data specifying certified or under conversion production areas, are consistent with other agricultural production statistics by integrating those into the data sets. Those organic production statistics should also be coherent with, and use, the administrative data produced under Regulation (EU) 2018/848.
(21)
The gross nutrient balance is one of the most widely used agri-environmental indicators. It is described in the Eurostat/OECD common methodology as the calculated difference between the total quantity of nutrient inputs entering an agricultural system and the quantity of nutrient outputs leaving that agricultural system. Despite its importance, not all Member States provide the data on gross nutrient balance voluntarily to the Commission (Eurostat). It is therefore essential for the gross nutrient balance to be incorporated into this Regulation.
(22)
Veterinary medicinal products are an important input to agriculture. It is important to avoid duplication of work and to optimise the use of existing information that is capable of being used for statistical purposes. To that end, and with a view to providing easily accessible and useful information to Union citizens and other stakeholders on sales and use of veterinary medicinal products, including the use of antimicrobial medicinal products in food-producing animals, the relevant available statistics, under Regulation (EU) 2019/6 of the European Parliament and of the Council (14), should be disseminated by the Commission (Eurostat). To that effect, appropriate cooperation agreements on statistical activities should be established between the Commission and relevant entities, including at international level.
(23)
Biocidal products constitute an important input in agriculture, for instance in veterinary hygiene and animal feed. Active substances authorised in plant protection products are often used in biocidal products. Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 already identified the need to collect statistics on biocidal products for informed, science-based policies in the areas of agriculture, the environment, public health and food safety. Taking into consideration that the work programme for the systematic examination of all existing active substances contained in biocidal products under Regulation (EU) No 528/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council (15) is still ongoing, with only 35 % of the related work completed, it is still premature to include biocidal products in the scope of this Regulation. As soon as the examination of active substances for use in biocidal products is finalised, the Commission should consider extending the coverage of this Regulation to include such products.
(24)
In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003, territorial units should be defined in accordance with the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) classification. In order to limit the burden on Member States, regional data requirements should not exceed the requirements established by previous Union legislation unless new regional levels have come into existence in the meantime. Consequently, it is appropriate to allow regional statistical data for Germany to be provided for the NUTS 1 territorial units only.
(25)
It should be possible to collect data on ad hoc subjects related to agricultural input and output at a specific time in order to supplement the data collected on a regular basis with additional data on subjects that require more information, emerging phenomena or innovations. The need for such additional data should, however, be duly justified.
(26)
In order to decrease the administrative burden on Member States, exemptions from certain regular transmissions of data should be allowed if a Member State’s contributions to the EU total for those data are low or the observed phenomenon is insignificant in relation to the total production in that particular Member State.
(27)
In order to improve the efficiency of the statistical production processes within the ESS and to reduce the administrative burden on respondents, NSIs and other national authorities should have the right to access and use, promptly and free of charge, any administrative data that are needed for public purposes, irrespective of whether they are held by public, semi-public or private bodies. NSIs and other national authorities should also be able to integrate those administrative data with statistics to the extent that such data are necessary for developing, producing and disseminating European agricultural statistics, in accordance with Article 17a of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009.
(28)
Member States or responsible national authorities should endeavour to modernise data collection modes insofar as possible. The use of digital solutions and land monitoring tools, such as the Union’s Earth observation programme Copernicus and remote sensors, should be promoted. Agricultural data are increasingly generated through digital farming practices, where the farmer remains the primary data source.
(29)
In order to ensure flexibility and to reduce the administrative burden on respondents, NSIs and other national authorities, Member States should be allowed to use statistical surveys, administrative records and any other sources, methods or innovative approaches, including scientifically-based and well-documented methods such as imputation, estimation and modelling. The quality, and in particular the accuracy, timeliness and comparability of statistics based on those sources, should always be ensured.
(30)
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 includes provisions on the transmission of data from Member States to the Commission (Eurostat) and on the use of such data, including on the transmission and protection of confidential data. Measures taken in accordance with this Regulation are to ensure that confidential data are transmitted and used exclusively for statistical purposes in accordance with Articles 21 and 22 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009.
(31)
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 provides for a reference framework for European statistics and requires Member States to comply with the statistical principles and quality criteria specified in that Regulation. Quality reports are essential for assessing, improving and communicating the quality of European statistics. The ESSC has endorsed the single integrated metadata structure as the ESS standard for quality reporting, thereby helping to satisfy, through uniform standards and harmonised methods, the statistical quality requirements laid down in Article 12(3) of that Regulation. That ESS standard is to contribute to the harmonisation of quality assurance and reporting under this Regulation.
(32)
In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 223/2009, the data collected and the quality reports transmitted by the Member States under this Regulation should be disseminated by the Commission (Eurostat).
(33)
In accordance with the objectives of this Regulation and where new data requirements or improvements to data sets covered by this Regulation are needed, the Commission should assess their feasibility by launching feasibility and pilot studies, where necessary.
(34)
An impact assessment of the Strategy for Agricultural Statistics for 2020 and beyond was carried out in 2016 in accordance with the principle of sound financial management in order to focus the statistical programme established by this Regulation on the need for effectiveness in achieving the objectives and in order to incorporate budgetary constraints.
(35)
Since the objective of this Regulation, namely the systematic production of European statistics on agricultural input and output in the Union, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States because a coordinated approach is required, but can rather, by reason of consistency and comparability, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.
(36)
In order to take into account emerging data needs mainly stemming from new developments in agriculture, from revised legislation and from changing policy priorities, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) should be delegated to the Commission in respect of amending the detailed topics listed in this Regulation, amending the transmission frequencies, reference periods and the applicability of the dimensions of detailed topics, and specifying the information to be provided by Member States on an ad hoc basis for the collection of ad hoc data as laid down in this Regulation. When adopting such delegated acts, the Commission should take into account aspects such as cost and administrative burden on respondents and Member States. It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making (16). In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States’ experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.
(37)
In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission with a view to specifying the coverage requirements, the data sets linked to the topics and detailed topics listed in the Annex and the technical elements of the data to be provided, to establishing the lists and descriptions of the variables and other practical arrangements for the collection of ad hoc data, further specifying each transmission frequency of the data sets, defining the deadlines for transmitting the data and the transmission frequencies concerned, the variables and the relevant thresholds on the basis of which Member States may be exempted from sending specific data, further specifying the reference periods, setting out the practical arrangements for, and contents of, the quality reports, specifying the coverage requirements as regards the transitional regime for data on the detailed topic of use of plant protection products in agriculture, and granting derogations to Member States. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (17). When exercising those powers, the Commission should take into account aspects such as cost and administrative burden on respondents and Member States.
(38)
Where the implementation of this Regulation would require major adaptations to the national statistical system of a Member State, the Commission should, in duly justified cases and for a limited period of time, be able to grant derogations to the Member State concerned. Such major adaptations may arise in particular from the need to adapt the data collection systems to include the new data requirements, including the access to administrative sources and other relevant sources.
(39)
Funding should be required from both Member States and the Union in order to support the implementation of this Regulation. Provision should therefore be made for a Union financial contribution in the form of grants.
(40)
The financial interests of the Union should be protected through proportionate measures throughout the expenditure cycle, including the prevention, detection and investigation of irregularities, the recovery of funds lost, wrongly paid or incorrectly used and, where appropriate, administrative and financial penalties.
(41)
This Regulation should apply without prejudice to Directive 2003/4/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (18) and Regulations (EC) No 1367/2006 (19) and (EC) No 1049/2001 (20) of the European Parliament and of the Council and in compliance with statistical confidentiality in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 223/2009.
(42)
Collaboration and coordination between the authorities within the framework of the ESS should be strengthened to ensure coherence and comparability of European agricultural statistics produced in accordance with the principles laid down in Article 338(2) TFEU. Data are also collected by Union bodies other than those referred to in this Regulation and by other organisations. Cooperation between such bodies and organisations and those involved in the ESS should therefore be reinforced in order to take advantage of synergies.
