icasiii cancun mexico, november 2004 establishing a survey frame for agriculture: the new zealand...

ICASIII Cancun Mexico, November 2004

Establishing a survey frame for agriculture:The New Zealand experience

Andrew Hunter

Manager Business, Financial & Structural Statistics

Statistics New Zealand


Agriculture Statistics in New ZealandFirst recorded data – 1861Annual survey or census most years to 1996Survey programme ceased in 1996 - consequence of

reduced Statistics NZ funding1997/98 - review of agriculture statistics by Statistics NZ 1999 – Survey of livestock & cropping2000 – Horticulture Census2001 new baseline funding – Ministry of Agriculture &

Forestry "... to develop an ongoing programme to collect agricultural statistics in partnership with Statistics New Zealand"

2002 – Agriculture Production Census


Establishing a suitable frame2001 – Joint review of potential frames conducted by SNZ

& MAF

Four options AgriBase (AgriQuality NZ Ltd)

As a land-based register, is conceptually more suitable and has good coverage of livestock farms

Business Frame (BF) - Statistics NZ Tax based, good coverage of tax entities, limited maintenance at time

Combining the BF and AgriBase BF supplemented by other farm lists (AgriBase, MAF Forest Listing, the

2000 Hort Survey Population, etc)

None suitable due to factors such as cost & time required to update, low match rates between lists and coverage concerns


The immediate solution – option 5Inland Revenue Department’s GST Client Register to form

the foundation, supported by BF maintenanceCoverage supplemented using:

other IRD data to identify farming businesses that were non-GST registered; and

other farming lists used to update contact details where possible (e.g. AgriBase, National Exotic Forest Description, the 2000 Horticulture Census Population)

Assumptions Tax system is the most up-to-date source of information on business units As all significant units engaged in legitimate agriculture activity are

required to be registered with IRD coverage will be high


Option 5 - AdvantagesProvides a cost effective means of covering most NZ

agricultural activityBased on a proven infrastructure that supports key

requirements including well defined standards and classifications

Uses existing maintenance processes including: Tax monitoring – births, deaths, activity levels, addresses etc Annual Frame Update Survey – regular updates for significant businesses

incl complex multi-unit structures

Supports sample design based on economic significanceAllows for integration with other SNZ or administrative

data to enhance the range of outputs (e.g. financial data, employment data etc)


Option 5 – Advantages (continued)The BF is well understood by survey practitioners and has

been designed as a source for survey framesNo legal constraints, updating is not reliant on respondent

consent re supply to external parties e.g. AgriBase


Option 4 - ChallengesDuplicates - several tax units associated with one 'farm‘

2 or more tax entities for one production unit e.g. land holding trusts 2 or more productive units on one farm e.g. core farm plus sharemilker

BF maintenance strategy is geared to support large businesses

The majority of lifestyle farming activities cannot be identified

Agricultural activity that is secondary to the main business activity is difficult to identify


Future frame enhancementsA frame 'tidy up' prior to the 2005 agriculture survey,

automating update processes where possibleEstablishing a concordance between the Business Frame

and AgriBase2005/06 propose testing feasibility of linking satellite

imagery and production dataEstablish an ongoing programme of frame coverage

evaluation in the form of an 'independent' frame enumeration study

icasiii cancun mexico, november 2004 establishing a survey frame for agriculture: the new zealand...

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