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AGRICULTURE

ABS

The ABS has had an agricultural statistics program for more than a century, and produces a range of statistics relevant to agriculture through its other statistical programs. The principal agricultural collection of the ABS is the five-yearly Agricultural Census, which provides a key reference dataset on agricultural activity in Australia, including commodity production, natural resource management, farm business management and water use. The Agricultural Census is a source of comprehensive agricultural data across all agricultural commodities at a sub-state level. In inter-censal years an annual sample survey (currently termed the Rural Environment and Agricultural Commodity Survey – REACS) is conducted to collect similar information (see Table 5 Appendix 3). Data from the Agricultural Census and the annual survey, along with annual data collected by the ABS on the value of agricultural commodities produced, are critical inputs to measuring the contribution of agriculture to the national economy through the National Accounts¹⁸.

ABS also produces a range of other data relevant to agriculture, including industry-specific surveys, land management practices data, trade data (imports and exports of goods¹⁹ and information about the characteristics of businesses in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries, including aggregate-level financial data, business entries and exits and business use of IT and innovation²⁰. The ABS labour force survey provides quarterly employment estimates for agricultural sub-industries.

The Census of Population and Housing (Population Census) is a key national data set that contributes to understanding the individuals, households and communities related to agricultural industries. The Population Census provides fine scale (spatial and industry categories) employment data on persons participating in agricultural production and related supply chain industries. Further, the Population Census provides a range of variables, including age, gender, educational attainment, cultural diversity, Indigenous status, and income that enable the development of detailed farmer typologies across agricultural industries (see Table 5 Appendix 3). The Population Census is the principle data set for analysing and understanding households and communities related to agricultural industries, including monitoring and evaluating change brought about by economic, social and environmental phenomena.

The ABS agricultural statistics program is funded primarily through government appropriation with a component of user-funding. The overall level of funding varies by year because of the cyclical nature of the Agricultural Census and variations in the amount of user-funding. Program resources were $6.9 million in 2014-15; $5.9 million in 2015-16; and $8.5 million in 2016-17²¹. The appropriation funds the provision of the core data required to inform national and state agricultural policy and to measure agriculture's contribution to the national accounts. This includes data on the area and production of the agricultural commodities that contribute (in aggregate) the majority of value to the national economy, as well as data on natural resource use (including water) and on agricultural land management practices that are of national policy significance. These data are predominantly collected through the annual agricultural survey and Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced collection, and the five-yearly Agricultural Census. Data are produced for a range of geographic boundaries, including national, state/territory and sub-state areas, including those defined through the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) (see Table 5 Appendix 3 for details). Topics of specific interest to particular users are funded on a user-funded basis. These can include industry-specific collections (such as the Vineyards collection undertaken periodically by the ABS on behalf of grape and wine industry bodies, or more detailed data on specific commodities in the annual survey) or topics of policy interest to one or more government agencies (for example, the Land Management Practices Surveys funded by the Department of Agriculture).

Under the Census and Statistics Act 1905 the Australian Statistician has the authority to direct respondents to complete ABS surveys collected under the Act. The ABS derives its functions and responsibilities in relation to statistical collection primarily from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975 (ABS Act) and the Census and Statistics Act 1905 (CSA Act) ²². The ABS Act establishes the ABS as an independent statutory authority, defines its functions and establishes the office of Australian Statistician (among other things). The CSA Act provides the Australian Statistician with the authority to conduct statistical collections, and, when necessary, to direct a person to provide statistical information. The CSA Act also requires the ABS to publish and disseminate compilations and analyses of statistical information and to maintain the confidentiality of information collected under the Act. The ability of the ABS to protect the confidentiality of respondents' information, combined with the power to compel response where necessary, contributes to ensuring high response rates to ABS collections.

Under the ABS Act the ABS also has a legislated responsibility to help address the issues arising from multiple official statistical producers, by "co-ordinating the operations of official bodies in the collection, compilation and dissemination of statistics and related information"²³. Through this role ABS encourages and promotes coordination between official statistics producers, promoting the use of common standards, classifications and definitions, and promoting best practice statistical methodologies. As part of this role the ABS hosts the Statistical Clearing House, which is the central clearance point for surveys of 50 or more businesses that are run, funded, or conducted on behalf of the Australian Government. It aims to minimise the burden of Australian Government surveys on businesses by reducing survey duplication and ensuring that proposed business survey methods and questionnaire designs are fit for purpose.

ABARES

ABARES has been a significant provider of agricultural statistics since the inception of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE) in 1945. ABARES is the research arm of the Department of Agriculture and provides professionally independent research, analysis, forecasting and statistics on the agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries. ABARES annual collections of farm business data inform government, industry and other stakeholders about farm production, productivity and financial performance.

ABARES farm surveys currently provide national coverage of broadacre (grains, sheep and beef), dairy and vegetable farms and provide data on farm financial and physical performance. The broadacre and dairy surveys have been conducted annually since the late 1970s, and the vegetable survey has been conducted annually since 2005-06. In addition, a survey of irrigation farms in the Murray-Darling Basin has been conducted since 2006-07, although reduced funding resulted in the scope of this survey being reduced from ten to three regions in 2013-14.

The data collected in these surveys allow for detailed analysis of the farm financial performance and productivity by region and industry for the majority of broadacre agriculture. However, the survey program does not regularly cover many important industries such as sugar cane, wine grapes, fruit growing and intensive livestock. ABARES also undertakes a number of one off or as required supplementary and additional collections as commissioned work on a variety of topics or industries (Table 5 Appendix 3).

ABARES farm surveys cover enterprises with an Estimated Value of Agricultural Operations (EVAO) of more than $40,000. ABARES’ survey program utilises the ABS agricultural survey frame to develop its survey samples ²⁴. This sharing of the ABS survey frame improves the accuracy of ABARES' surveys, eliminates the need for ABARES to develop an independent business register and improves the comparability of the statistics derived from these surveys with those produced by the ABS.

ABARES core survey collections are funded primarily through Department of Agriculture appropriation, with contributions from RDCs and the Murray Darling Basin Authority. In 2012-13 the ABARES broadacre (Australian Agricultural and Grazing Industries Survey (AAGIS)) and dairy (Australian Diary Industry Survey (ADIS)) survey program cost approximately $3 million. Over the past five years, on average, around one-quarter of the cost of the AAGIS was funded by GRDC (18 per cent) and MLA (seven per cent), with the Department of Agriculture contributing the remaining three-quarters. This share has fallen substantially from the 53 per cent contributed to collection costs by RDCs in 2004-05.

For more than 10 years, approximately 50 per cent of the costs of the ADIS were provided by Dairy Australia (and its predecessors) with the Department of Agriculture contributing the remainder. However, in 2014-15 Dairy Australia ceased funding ADIS in order to expand its Farm Monitor benchmarking project.

The vegetable survey is well supported by Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL) providing more than $0.3 million a year, relative to a total cost of almost $0.5 million a year. A three-year contract is in place until 2015-16. The irrigation survey was only partially supported in 2013-14, resulting in a reduced sample of 400 farm businesses covering three regions, compared with previous years’ targets of 900 farm businesses across 10 regions. Funds for this survey are negotiated each financial year.

The RDCs are funded through levies collected from industries as well as matched funding from the Australian Government for research and development activities. Hence the total government contribution to funding of these surveys is substantial. The role of RDCs and their funding arrangements are discussed in more detail in a later section.

Farm businesses are not required by law to respond to ABARES surveys – their responses are voluntary. Consequently ABARES spends significant time building relationships with farmers to improve response rates and ensure high data quality. Because it is an Australian government institution, ABARES is required to clear its business surveys through the ABS Statistical Clearing House.

In addition to its farm survey data collections, ABARES produces a range of integrated and modelled agricultural information products, including:

• Agricultural Commodity Statistics – an annual compendium of historical statistics covering the agriculture, fisheries, food and forestry industries. It provides a set of comprehensive statistical tables on Australian and world production, consumption, stocks and trade for a wide range of commodities. These include grains and oilseeds, livestock, livestock products, food, wool, horticulture, forestry and fisheries products. The report also contains statistics on farm inputs, agricultural water use and national macroeconomic indicators such as economic growth, employment, balance of trade, exchange rates and interest rates
• Agricultural Commodities – A quarterly production containing the latest national and international macroeconomic outlook for Australia’s agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries. The report provides forecasts of prices, production and the value and volume of exports for Australia’s major agricultural and natural resource-based commodities
• Agsurf – ABARES disseminate AAGIS and ADIS broadacre and dairy survey data through its online Agsurf portal. Custom cross tabulated data sheets can be produced based on geographic region, sub-industry and farm level variables, including livestock numbers, crop production, costs, fertilizer use, receipts and socioeconomic indicators
• Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program (ACLUMP)²⁵ – ACLUMP coordinates land use mapping in Australia to ensure consistent coverage of land use and land management practices. ACLUMP produces national-scale mapping using cost-effective modelling that links the agricultural statistics of various crops and pastures, time-series satellite data, and available spatial data on non-agricultural land use. ACLUMP is a consortium of Australian and State government partners
• The Monitor²⁶ – an online tool that delivers a broad range of climatic, production, biophysical and economic information, for various regions throughout Australia. The Monitor provides the ability to explore and report on spatial, temporal and point-based data and information at various regional scales. The Monitor also provides access to a mapping interface to view spatial data against several different region types.

There are 15 Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs) — 5 statutory corporations and 10 industry-owned corporations covering the major primary industries. Of the 15 RDCs, 12 represent agricultural industries. These are: cotton, dairy, eggs, grapes and wine, grains, horticulture, livestock export, meat and livestock, meat processing, pork, sugar, and wool. The Rural Industries RDC (RIRDC) is a cross-cutting RDC that supports smaller industries and sponsors research on national rural issues. The remaining two are the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) and Forest and Wood Products Australia (FWPA) — which are discussed in the sections on fisheries and forestry.

The rural RDCs are significant funders of research in agriculture, fisheries and forestry, investing $441 million in R&D in 2008-09^{27 28}.According to the Council of Rural Research and Development Corporations, this includes $244 million of industry levies and $207 million in government matched funds (in most cases on a matching basis up to a limit of 0.5 per cent of industry gross value of production). The RDCs invest in and support research and development activities in areas that are priorities for government and industry, such as productivity growth, climate variability and natural resource management. In terms of agricultural statistics, each of the RDCs is involved in a variety of data collections relevant to their industries, including primary collections, administrative data collation, and commissioned research across a range of topics, including marketing, production and prices.

A number of surveys are funded by RDCs, including grower surveys and surveys of on-farm adoption of management practices. These are conducted by service providers other than ABS and ABARES. Examples of RDC surveys²⁹ are given in Table 5 Appendix 3.

RDCs collect these data to fill perceived gaps in information that supports their industries’ sustainability, productivity and competitiveness. This includes greater detail and more frequent timing of data than that provided in official statistics as well as data on topics not covered in official statistical collections.

Businesses are not required by law to respond to requests for survey information from RDCs or private sector organisations and responses are voluntary. There is no requirement for data collections undertaken by non-Australian government institutions to be cleared by the ABS Statistical Clearing House.

OTHER ORGANISATIONS - AGRICULTURE

Other agencies contribute to the production, management and delivery of research, including the integration and dissemination of statistical assets that support agriculture. These include federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Environment, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Bureau of Meteorology, and Geoscience Australia; state and territory governments; Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) and universities; non-government organisations; industry groups; farming groups; private organisations and individuals.

FOOTNOTES

¹⁸ See for example the following ABS publications: Australian National Accounts: Input-Output Tables (cat. no. 5209.0.55.001), Australian System of National Accounts (cat. no. 5204.0).
¹⁹ In general, ABS international trade statistics are not produced for industries, however a concordance between the Trade in Goods Classification (HS) and ANZSIC, which assigns different commodities to the industry most likely to have produced that product, is published in International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia, ABS (cat. no. 5368.0). The publication Characteristics of Australian Exporters, ABS. (cat. no. 5368.0.55.006) also provides some data by industry (for trade in goods only) using the ABN of the exporter and the business register ANZSIC. There is no data currently available that provides estimates of Trade in Services by industry.
²⁰ See for example the following ABS publications: Selected Characteristics of Australian Business (cat. no. 8167.0), Australian Industry (cat. no. 8155.0), Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits (cat. no. 8165.0), and Counts of Australian Business Operators (cat. no. 8175.0).
²¹ Source: ABS Forward Work Program, 2014-15 to 2017-18, ABS. (cat. no. 1006.0), ‘Agriculture Statistics’ program section.
²² For more information on ABS legislation see the ABS website, 'ABS Legislative Framework'.
²³ ABS Act 1975 – Section 6 (1)(c) - source: National Statistical Service website.
²⁴ This sharing of the agricultural frame is enabled under Clause 6 of the Statistics Determination 1983.
²⁵ http://www.daff.gov.au/ABARES/aclump
²⁶ http://www.daff.gov.au/abares/monitor
²⁷ Council of Rural Research and Development Corporation Chairs, Impact of investment in research and development by the rural research and development corporations (2010)
²⁸ The Productivity Commission (2011) estimated that governments provide around 75 per cent of overall funding for rural R&D, with nearly two thirds of the public contribution coming from the Australian Government.
²⁹ This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the surveys that RDCs are conducting, but gives examples based on publicly available information and information obtained during NASR consultations.