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EXPLANATORY NOTES


INTRODUCTION

1 This publication presents estimates from the 2009-10 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS). It contains detailed statistics at the national and state/territory levels, on the major agricultural activities undertaken, land use, and key land management practices. Additional datacubes at national, state/territory and NRM region levels provide a more detailed picture of land management and farming in Australia. These datacubes can be accessed via the Downloads tab of Land Management and Farming in Australia, 2009-10 (cat. no. 4627.0).

2 A reduced range of commodity items was collected from the 2009-10 ARMS in comparison to surveys and censuses of previous years. As a result, care must be taken when comparing estimates over time for Australia, state/territory and regional levels. More information is available upon request.


GENERAL

3 Where figures for individual states/territories have been suppressed for reasons of confidentiality, they have been included in relevant national totals. In addition, some categories have been combined, for example, combining Australian Capital Territory data with New South Wales data.

4 Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.

5 For some items, multiple responses are possible and thus totals are not necessarily the sum of the component items. For example, a respondent could perform more than one land management practice on their holding.


SCOPE AND COVERAGE

6 The scope of the 2009-10 ARMS was all agricultural businesses recorded on the ABS' Business Register (ABSBR) above a minimum size cut-off. The ABSBR is based on the Australian Business Register (ABR) which is administered and maintained by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

7 A minimum cut-off of $5,000 was applied to determine whether a business was in-scope for the 2009-10 ARMS. The measure of size was based on the ABS' Estimated Value of Agricultural Operations (EVAO) or a derived value based on Business Activity Statement (BAS) turnover.

8 While the ABSBR does not include all agricultural businesses in Australia, it provides improved coverage from the former ABS-maintained Agricultural Survey frame as most businesses and organisations in Australia need to obtain an Australian Business Number (ABN) from the ATO for their business operations. The ABR-based register is also more up-to-date as it excludes agricultural businesses with cancelled ABNs and incorporates regularly updated information on agricultural businesses from the ATO.

9 For the 2009-10 ARMS, a response rate of 87% was achieved from a sample of approximately 38,000 agricultural businesses. This sample was selected from an in-scope population of approximately 171,000 agricultural businesses.


RELIABILITY OF DATA

10 The estimates in this publication are subject to sampling and non-sampling errors.


SAMPLING ERRORS

11 The estimates in this publication are based on information obtained from respondents to the ARMS for the year ended 30 June 2010 and are subject to sampling variability. That is, estimates may differ from figures that would be produced if all agricultural businesses had been included in the survey. One measure of the likely difference is given by the standard error (SE), which indicates the extent to which an estimate might vary by chance when not all units have responded, i.e. when a 'sample' of responses only is obtained. There are about two chances in three that a 'sample' estimate will differ by less than one SE from the figure that would have been obtained if all units had responded, and about nineteen chances in twenty that the difference will be less than two SEs.

12 In this publication, 'sampling' variability of the estimates is measured by the relative standard error (RSE) which is obtained by expressing the RSE as a percentage of the estimates to which it refers.

13 Most published estimates have RSEs less than 5%. Where the RSE of an estimate included in this publication falls in the range of 10% to less than 25%, it has been annotated with the symbol '^' indicating that the estimate should be used with caution as it is subject to sampling variability too high for some purposes. Where the RSE of an estimate is 25% to 50%, it has been annotated with the symbol '*', indicating that the estimate should be used with caution as it is subject to sampling variability too high for most practical purposes. Where the RSE of an estimate exceeds 50%, it has been annotated with the symbol '**', indicating that the sampling variability causes the estimate to be considered too unreliable for general use. Separate indication of the RSEs of all estimates is available on request.

14 The following table contains estimates of RSEs for a selection of the statistics presented in this publication:

RELATIVE STANDARD ERRORS OF SELECTED ESTIMATES, by State - 2009-10
	NSW(a)	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas.	NT	Aust.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Reporting fertiliser use (no. of businesses)	2.2	2.0	2.1	2.3	1.9	2.5	1.4	1.0
Land used for grazing (no. of businesses)	1.2	1.4	1.4	2.0	1.7	1.7	1.3	0.7
Monitoring ground cover on pastures (no. of businesses)	1.6	1.7	2.2	2.7	2.0	2.7	1.7	0.9
Ground cover target set for cropping land (no. of businesses)	2.9	3.4	3.1	3.3	2.7	3.9	2.1	1.5
Native vegetation on holding (no. of businesses)	1.7	2.9	1.9	2.8	2.1	3.0	1.2	1.1
Wetlands on holding (no. of businesses)	6.8	7.4	7.2	8.6	6.2	9.7	1.9	3.1
Rivers or creeks on holding (no. of businesses)	2.0	3.4	2.5	3.9	2.8	3.4	1.2	1.3
Stubble left intact (no cultivation) ('000 ha)	4.4	5.6	4.5	2.8	3.4	4.9	9.3	2.0
Stubble removed by baling or heavy grazing ('000 ha)	7.2	9.7	14.8	8.1	8.5	4.5	13.2	3.8
(a) Includes ACT.

• Agricultural Commodities, Australia (cat. no. 7121.0)
• Principal Agricultural Commodities, Australia, Preliminary (cat. no. 7111.0)
• Water use on Australian Farms (cat. no. 4618.0)