PROPOSED CHANGES TO AGRICULTURE SURVEY PROGRAM

SUMMARY OF CURRENT PROGRAM

A summary of the current ABS agriculture and natural resource management (NRM) survey program schedule is as follows. It shows that the Agricultural Census is held every 5 years with the Agricultural Survey held in intercensal years. The NRM survey is conducted every 2nd year.

Survey reference year	Survey name	Survey in field	Results available
2007-08	ARMS	July 2008	Nov 2008 Prelim May 2009 Final
2008-09	NRM	July 2009	May 2010
	Ag Survey	July 2009	Nov 2009 Prelim May 2010 Final
2009-10	Ag Survey	July 2010	Nov 2010 Prelim May 2011 Final
2010-11	NRM	July 2011	May 2012
	Ag Census	July 2011	Nov 2011 Prelim May 2012 Final
2011-12	Ag survey	July 2012	May 2013

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It should be noted that this summary isn't comprehensive as it doesn't include all the various agricultural surveys that ABS runs such as the quarterly livestock survey. The intent is primarily to highlight how the NRM and Ag surveys would interact if the NRM survey was changed by one year.

PROPOSED NEW SURVEY PROGRAM

The ABS is proposing to change both the timing and the content of it's Agricultural and NRM survey programs. Table 1.2 presents the proposed new program survey schedule. Table 1.3 presents the broad information requirements to be collected in the Agriculture survey program.

Essentially the NRM survey will move forward by one year to better meet the reporting needs of the Caring for our Country initiative. This means for the 2008-09 reference year, there will be no ABS NRM survey conducted. For the 2009-10 reference year, an NRM survey will be conducted to be known as the Resource Managers survey. It is possible that the Agriculture survey and Resource Managers survey will be combined along similar lines to the 2007-08 ARMS.

Survey reference year	Survey name	Survey in field	Results available
2007-08	ARMS	July 2008	Nov 2008 Prelim May 2009 Final
2008-09	Ag Survey	July 2009	Nov 2009 Prelim May 2010 Final
2009-10	Ag Survey and Resource Managers Survey, possibly combined as ARMS	July 2010	Nov 2010 Prelim May 2011 Final
2010-11	Ag Census	July 2011	Nov 2011 Prelim May 2012 Final
2011-12	Ag Survey and Resource Managers Survey, possibly combined as ARMS	July 2012	Nov 2012 Prelim May 2013 Final
2012-13	Ag Survey	July 2013	Nov 2013 Prelim May 2014 Final
2013-14	Ag Survey and Resource Managers Survey, possibly combined as ARMS	July 2014	Nov 2014 Prelim May 2015 Final

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The program and information requirements to be met are summarised in Table 1.3 below, and include:

1. At the national level, the core set of commodities collected annually will account for approximately 90% of the total Gross Value of Agricultural Production (GVAP). GVAP estimates will be adjusted to account for commodities not collected in the non-rotation years.
2. Water use and land use data requirements are met annually.
3. The expanded list of commodities are to be collected periodically, including in each five-yearly Agricultural Census.
4. Additional water information collected every four years to assist compilation of the ABS Water Account.
   
   

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			Reference period for the collection
	Information requirements		2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Commodity production from agricultural businesses - Annual component			Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Commodity production from agricultural businesses - Rotation 1 - Supplementary component				Yes		Yes
Rotation 2 - Changing nature of production (response to changes in markets and environment)						Yes
Rotation 3 - Management practices - Current practice and towards better practices			Yes (some)		Yes (some)	Trigger questions
Water security - Annual component			Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Water security - Rotation 4 - Supplementary component - water management				Yes
Rotation 5 - Resource conditions and management - protecting the natural assets			Yes	Yes (some)	Yes
Rotation 6 - Agricultural businesses structure / reform			Yes		Yes
Rotation 7 - Farm demographics			Yes		Yes
Rotation 8 - Agricultural businesses financial viability

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