Modernisation of EAA

2026-07-22

In response to the overall strategy to modernise agricultural statistics, the need to take account of evolving data requirements and based on recommendations of the European Court of Auditors, the European Commission has launched a process to modernise the Economic Accounts of Agriculture (EAA). The EAA represent a central instrument for measuring agricultural income. Part of the proposed modernisation process is to expand the EAA to cover other factors impacting the income of farmers. The planned project aims to carry out first steps needed for expanding the agricultural accounts, focusing on the following selected topics: Currently, the EAA only shows to a limited extent the interrelationships with other economic activities and how intermediate consumption is distributed among the various agricultural activities. Another current limitation is the incomplete view of farmers' income, as only inseparable secondary non-agricultural activities of farmers are included. As first steps to close these knowledge gaps, STAT intends to conduct the following pilot studies: i) analyse data availability on secondary non-agricultural activities of the agricultural industry with focus on including and refining them within the EAA/agricultural accounts; ii) conduct exploratory work for extended input output tables (IOTs). Focusing on two major product group (cereals, pigs), supply use tables (SUTs) will be created and their intermediate consumption will be determined. A better coverage of secondary non-agricultural activities of farmers within agricultural accounts broadens the picture of farmers’ income. The development of SUTs and extended IOTs with agricultural products opens up the possibility of better analysing the external relations of the agricultural industry in a coherent and integrated framework. The project thus contributes to improving the analytical capacity of EAA/agricultural accounts and their relevance to stakeholders and decision makers in the agricultural sector

Austria

2025-10-01