Census of agriculture, 2010

Municipality. Other regions at lower level will be considered if it does not get into conflict with confidensiality.

Complete censuses have been conducted every tenth year since the beginning of the 20th century. All agriculture properties and agricultural holdings are included in this years census.

Information is forwarded to EUs statistical office, Eurostat in accordance with specifications given in the i regulation. Results will also be a part of data deliveries to FAO.

Deidentified data file with data from registers and questionnaires will be filed in Statistics Norway.

The aim of the census is to give a view of base of resources and production, and operational and environmental conditions in agricultural business. Additionally, the census shall give a historical view of the development and how farming is conducted in Norway.

The Census of agriculture is financed by own resources in Statistics Norway's budget.

Important users of results are administrative agencies, the governments agricultural authorities and the farmers unions. Data will be used in planning, investigations, support for desicion making and research etcetera. Data is a very important contribution in the negotiations between the farmers unions and the Government

A census makes it possible to publish results on low geographical levels which makes the municipality bodies capable to study development at smaller regions than county.

Not relevant

The Census of Agricultural is close related to other statistics published annually. In the work with the census, one will make it possible to see the statistics in connection with each other.

Statistical act §§2-1, 2-2, 2-3 (compulsory fine).

REGULATION (EU) 2018/1091 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 18 July 2018 on integrated farm statistics and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1166/2008 and (EU) No 1337/2011

Census of agriculture comprise all agricultural properties and all holdings with a minimum production (area, animal husbandry).

An agricultural property is a property with at least 25 decares (2,5 hectares) productive forestry area and/or at least 5 decares (0,5 hectares) agricultural area. An agricultural holding is defined as a enterprise with at least 5 decares of agricultural area in use and/or a minimum of animal husbandry.

Holdings with horticulture compromise holdings with at least 2.0 decares of field-grown vegetables, at least 1.0 decare of fruit trees (50 fruit trees in 1979 and 1989), at least 1.0 decare of field-grown berries, at least 300 m ² of greenhouse area or at least 1.0 decare of nursery.

All information about farmers, owners and properties are collected from different registers. Some information from the holdings are collected on own questionnaires (unfortunately only available in Norwegian here: http://www.ssb.no/lt2010/ ).

Data collection can be divided in two.

All holdings are obliged to fill in a questionnaire with questions about labour input, other gainful activities, drainage, irrigation and use of animal manure. In addition, all horticultural holdings were obliged to fill in a questionnaire regarding horticulture.

Many registers are merged with data from the questionnaire:

• Farm register
• Application for Governmental grants
• Business Register
• Education-register
• Tax register
• A-ordningen

Census of agriculture is a complete census. To be able to publish preliminary figures at an early stage, a sample is drawn from all received questionnaires. The sample comprise 7 850 holdings. The sample is stratified by size of agricultural area in use, what kind of production and county.

When final figures were produced, the figures for labour input were lower than expected. The difference was due to the sample that did not intercept changes and specialisation in the population. The difference is linked to "other prcductions" which includes to many different productions.

The questionnaires were sent to the holdings in the population. The counting date of the Census was 1st October 2020.

Information from registers are collected by different divisions in Statistics Norway.

Many different controls and checks have been conducted to make sure quality and consistence within one report and between different reports and registers. A new automatic data editing system was introduced to control, correct, edit and imputate missing or erroneous values. The system imputated values based on logical controls, average values, proportional frequency distribution and by "nearest neighbour" principles (impute values from a holding very similar to the holdings that is edited).

In a complete census the calculations are rather simple with addition, grouping and cross tabulating.

In the sample (preliminary figures) the population are stratified by county, size of agricultural area in use and production. A weight is calculted for each holding.

See also 3.3. Sample.

Conversion of energy contents to kWh in 2010 was based on factors described in About the statistics regarding the Energy balanse and energy account, see http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/01/03/10/energiregn_en/

Not relevant

Results from the census are restrained if there are to few observations behind the results, or if the results can be traced beck to single respondents.

Censuses in primary industries have been conducted since 1907.

The time series can not be compared back to 1907, but are in many ways comparable back to late 1940's. For some variables there are breaks in the time series. From 1999 all activity blei alt som blir drive som ei eining uavhengig av kommunegrenser rekna som ei jordbruksbedrift. Før 1999 var den statistiske eininga for jordbruksbedrift avgrensa til å vere alt i ein kommune.

The questions about foreign labour force in 2010 included more kind of labour force than 1999. In 1999 labour force were defined as "guestworkers staying in Norway for shorter periods to participate in farming, i.e. harvesting". The questions in 1999 were only asked to horticulture producers. Foreign labour force has increased since 1999, and there are reasons to beleive that foreign labour input in 1999 on the whole only consisted of persons that stayed in the country for shorter periods of time. Anyway a comparison of foreign labour force in 1999 and 2010 should be done with consciousness.

The questions about other gainful activities were introduced in 1999. In these 11 years, the more attention has been put on such activities and the questions have been adjusted. This might have influence on some of the results. For example the increase in number of holdings whice rent out hunting and fishing rights are not real. Probably the figures for 1999 are to low.