DATA SOURCE:
Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN).
Data is available for the period 2014 to 2024.
Data are displayed as weighted averages.
The sample is constant along the years, with a minimum of 15 farms by Member States. Sample farms are the same along the years. For certain Member States, farming types, and years, data are unavailable due to small sample sizes, which prevents result disclosure.
The data is available for the following Member States:
- Apples: FR, IT, PL
- Oranges: ES, IT, PT
- Peaches & Nectarines: ES, IT
- Horticultural – Indoor: EL, ES, FR, NL, PL
- Horticultural – Outdoor: ES, MT
METHODOLOGY & DEFINITIONS:
Basic principles
The FSDN gathers cost data at the individual farm level. To compute production costs for particular products, it is necessary to allocate farm-level costs to each product. This allocation is based on the proportion of resources, such as land, labour, and inputs, utilised for each product. The methodology entails apportioning specific and general farm costs among various products, reflecting their shares in total farm production. The allocation of cost is proportional to the share of the output of the given product to the farm total output. While this process offers a systematic method for cost distribution, in situations where costs are not directly proportional to output, the resulting allocations may be subject to greater uncertainty and may not fully represent the actual costs of each product. This methodology ensures that sectoral reports derived from FSDN data are thorough and consistent across different Member States, taking into account differences in farm structures and ownership of production factors.
For horticultural farms, the allocation of costs to individual products is not feasible due to data limitations; consequently, gross margin calculations are reported solely at the farm level rather than at the product level.
Farms are selected according to the following criteria:
- Selection of FSDN farms for which more than 2/3 of their standard outputs come from specific fruit & vegetables production.
- Selection of FSDN farms for which more than 40% of total output comes from the specific fruit & vegetables production. This criterion guarantees sufficient specialisation to represent the sector.
The data shown comes from Member States that meet the above criteria and have a sufficient number of farms in the sample to ensure meaningful interpretation. The sample remains constant over the years, with the same farms included, which allows for reliable comparisons across time.
Cost Indicators
The allocation of farm-level costs to specific products involves distinguishing between various types of costs, ensuring each product's cost structure reflects the actual resources and expenses incurred.
The following cost categories are used to achieve this detailed cost allocation for specific products:
– Operating costs:
– Depreciation: apportion at the level of production.
– External factors:
Wages: Payments made to hired labour.
Rent: Costs of renting land or buildings.
Interests: Costs of borrowed capital.
Margin Indicators
The following margin indicators are used to evaluate the economic performance of farms, considering both direct and indirect costs associated with production:
- Gross margin (over operating costs): = [Output] - [Operating costs]
- Net margin (before own factors): = [Output] – [[Operating costs] - [Depreciation] - [External factors]]
The results are presented as indices, showing the relative change compared to the base year 2014 (2014 = 100). Absolute margin values are therefore not displayed.
Year-to-year variations reflect changes relative to the 2014 level. As a consequence, when the underlying absolute margin values are low, even small absolute changes may result in relatively large percentage changes in the index.
Specific features of the methodology for estimating the latest year data
Year n data are adjusted for n+1 by multiplying the output by price and yield indexes and input costs by price indexes. The source of the indices is as follows:
Output indices
For fruit producers:
Price indices: Market Price Information System
Yields indices: calculation of the evolution from year n+1 compared to year n, of the Area (cultivation/harvested/production) (1000 ha) multiply by the harvested production in EU standard humidity (1000 t), from Eurostat data source.
Coupled payments are based on the 3 latest year average.
For horticultural producers:
Price indices: Selling prices trend of a basket of vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, salads indoor/outdoor), based on Eurostat.
Input indices
Input indices are defined based on Eurostat data and applied on the following cost items:
Closing value Index
For more information on FSDN, please refer to the website:
https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/data-and-analysis/farm-structures-and-economics/fsdn_en