**Key Issues for a Better Measurement of Income and Employment**

Berkeley Hill

University of London, Imperial College (Wye campus)

International cooperation in developing statistics on the income of
agricultural households has highlighted the need for agreement on
certain aspects of the underlying methodology. These include the choice
of accounting framework, definitions of a household, of an agricultural
household and of disposable income. The choice of definition can greatly
influence the results and usability within a policy context.
International comparability of results requires national data systems to
be capable of generating results using these standards as well as
servicing national purposes*.*

**1 Introduction**

Before the late 1980s little interest was shown by agricultural
policymakers in most developed industrialised countries or by
international organisations in the income situation of farm households,
the most numerous form of institutional unit engaged in agricultural
production in all countries. Slattery \[1966\] reviewed and reported
what was known on the relative income of farmers up to the mid-1960s,
and found only seven countries where microeconomic data on personal
incomes could be found (Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the USA, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand). Very little progress was made in developing
statistics over the following two decades and several important EU
Member States (such as the UK, Italy and France) still lacked reliable
information at the start of the 1990s, and for some the gap still
exists.

The paucity of statistics has been of concern among some groups of users
for some time. As long ago as 1964 the OECD, as part of its study of low
incomes in agriculture, attempted to collect from the twenty-two
countries that took part information concerning the incomes that farmers
received from other sources and which might compensate for low earnings
from farming. To its concern it found that:

> ...In most countries, the information available does not give a
> precise indication of the farm income situation. Farm families cannot
> be accurately classified according to their level of income; data on
> income received from non-farm sources are particularly deficient.
> These limitations are a serious handicap in devising suitable policies
> and in assessing the results of measures taken; attention should be
> given to improving the situation \[OECD, 1964, p.7\].

Although scraps of information about off-farm activities could be found
for most, sets of microeconomic income data that permitted the
identification of farms with low total incomes were only encountered in
the Scandinavian countries, Austria, Germany, Canada and the USA
(Australia and New Zealand were not part of the study).

Since the mid-1980s the awareness of this important gap in statistics
has gathered momentum among academics and statisticians and *some*
policymakers (see, for example, the account given in Hill 2000). Both
the first and second World Conferences of Agricultural Statisticians
(1998 Washington and 2001/CAESAR, Rome) have devoted sessions to this
topic.

The analysis of what information exists at national level has been
hampered by the wide variety of methodologies that lie behind the
figures. In particular, disparities between what is considered to be an
agricultural household affect not only the numbers of households but
also the level and composition of income (a point taken up below). In an
attempt to provide harmonised statistics on the incomes of agricultural
households within the EU, Eurostat initiated the preparation of a
harmonised methodology in 1987 and published its first Manual on the
Total Income of Agricultural Households in 1990, with a revised version
appearing in 1995 \[Eurostat, 1995\] and a change of name to Income of
the Agricultural Households Sector (IAHS) statistics. This methodology
was seen as a development within the framework of national accounts,
where the provision has long existed for the subdivision of accounts for
the households sector into socio-professional groups, of which
agricultural household could form one. Before Eurostat started to
explore this possibility for more general use, only Germany and France
seem to have taken up this option. Eurostat saw this disaggregation of
the households sector as the most promising option then available as no
progress was at the time possible using a microeconomic approach.

These IAHS statistics have been criticised by, among others, the Court
of Auditors \[2003\] as being inadequate. Clearly sector-level figures
are inappropriate for exploring distributional issues such as poverty.
Poor coverage of years and incompleteness has hampered their usefulness
(see the latest results published as Eurostat, 2002). Nevertheless, the
IAHS methodology has proved to be a very useful exercise in confronting
central issues of methodology that can be used more widely, such as for
statistics based on microeconomic data sources that are now recognised
as being the main way forwards.

From 2003 the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), one
of the members of the Inter-secretariat Working Group on agricultural
statistics (IWG-AGRI), has taken the lead on behalf of the other members
in drafting a handbook on income measurement of agricultural households,
to be published in 2005. It has drawn on the previous IAHS Manual and
other international guides and harmonised methodologies. A number of key
issues are commonly encountered that must be tackled in order to reach a
better measurement of income and employment. These are the subject of
this paper.

2.  **Accounting framework**

A fundamental choice has to be made concerning the accounting framework
within which statistics on income and employment are based. Essentially,
this involves whether aggregate accounting or microeconomic accounting
approaches, conventions and definitions are selected. Macro-micro
disparities are long familiar to statisticians attempting income
measurement \[Ruggles and Ruggles, 1986\], even where the basic unit of
the account (the household-firm) is common to both. This central choice
affects many aspects of the methodology, including what constitutes a
household, what constitutes and agricultural household and the
definition of income.

To be internationally comparable, statistics on the income of
agricultural households have to share a common conceptual framework. The
United Nations' System of National Accounts (SNA), in its latest (1993)
versions (hereafter referred to as SNA93) is probably the most
universally accepted set of international accounting conventions \[UN,
1993\]. It forms the basis of much of what statistics already exist for
agriculture in countries at all levels of economic development and
contains guidelines for areas of statistics not yet well developed, such
as for agricultural households. The FAO's *System of Economic Accounts
for Food and Agriculture* of 1996 is based on it \[FAO, 1996\]. The
SNA93 presents a sequence of accounts for households that combine their
functions as both producers and consumers. These extend to the
calculation of disposable income and its use for saving and investment,
capital accounts and balance sheets, including net worth (which would
correspond with the wealth of the households sector. However, the
central focus of the SNA is on national accounting and economic
aggregates. For example, the concept of disposable income of the
agricultural household sector contains items in its estimation (both
positive and negative) that would not be included in household-level
studies or would be treated differently; this issue is taken up in a
later section. Reconciliation is possible between macro and micro
concepts of disposable income, given the information on the definitions
used, though the existence of what are apparently different figures
using the same label may be confusing for the non-expert.

The accounting framework at microeconomic level is less well-developed.
However, a recent major step towards a methodological standard has been
the final report and recommendations from the Expert Group on Household
Income Statistics (the Canberra Group), published in 2001. This group
contained representation from the statistical offices of some sixteen
countries and many international organisations, including Eurostat, the
International Labour Office, the OECD and the World Bank. Experience of
existing projects to improve and use household-level statistics were
included, notably the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS); this is not an EU
project although Eurostat and the OECD are partners in it. It should be
noted that the Canberra Group recommendations are not specific to
agricultural households and the issue of sub-sectoring is not tackled.
Nevertheless they are a useful input to considering details of a
methodology that can be applied to agricultural households.

It seems quite clear that many of the most pressing problems with which
policy has to deal require microeconomic statistics to illuminate them.
The issue of low incomes is the prime example. The UNECE's new Handbook
will thus give emphasis to microeconomic concepts and methodology.
However, it should not be forgotten that a system which sees income
statistics for the agricultural households sector as within national
accounts will be more consistent with the main economic accounts for
agricultural productive activity from which the main indicators of the
industry's performance are mostly taken.

**3 The household unit**

On first examination the definition of a household is fairly
straightforward. The SNA93 describes a household as follows (SNA93, para
4.132), with the addition in of a phrase that appears in the version of
the SNA that is applied in the EU -- the European System of Accounts
\[Eurostat, 1995\].

A small group of persons who share the same living accommodation, who
pool some, or all, of their income and wealth and who consume certain
types of goods and services collectively, mainly housing and food. \[The
criteria of the existence of family or emotional ties may be added\].

The SNA/ESA definition of the households sector includes private
households but also some units which do not form part of the coverage of
household budget surveys. Examples include both communal living units
(hostels and monasteries) and other institutions such as universities.
However, these units are unlikely to correspond with the notion of the
target group for agricultural policy and are probebly better omitted
from statistics on agricultural hosueholds. In any event, where
households are selected for special study that are mainly dependent on
agriculture for their incomes, such non-family forms are unlikely to be
included.

The SNA/ESA national accounts definition may not be universally
appropriate. Official definitions of households exist in the EU for use
in the separate national household budget surveys that are broadly
similar but differ in detail. The condition of living at the same
address and sharing catering arrangements is common but differences
occur in the way that living‑in domestic staff and temporary residents,
such as students, are treated. Household of different sizes and
compositions are brought together for comparison using an "equivalence
scale", for example to express children in terms of Consumer Units[^1].
The Canberra Group's preference for the household defined as a dwelling
concept is a reflection of the main line of its interest -- consumption,
income distribution and poverty.

In the present context an alternative view of what constitutes a
household may be appropriate. The centre of the issue is the role played
by adult family members additional to the farmer and spouse who live in
the farm dwelling ‑ usually grown‑up children, parents, brothers and
sisters. These multi-generational and extended households are thought to
be a particular feature of the social structure of agriculture, even in
many industrialised countries. While there would be little dispute over
treating a husband and wife with dependent children as a single
household unit for the purpose of income (and expenditure) assessment,
these other adults pose a problem. Where grown-up children receive a
wage, though they may make some payment to the farm household for their
keep, they probably regard their independently‑earned income to be under
their own control as far as spending is concerned. The case for *not*
including these additional adults in the household unit is particularly
strong where they have full-time jobs off the farm and are treated
within national tax systems as separate units. To include them in the
larger household unit of measurement, when they are clearly financially
independent, introduces a degree of artificiality that can undermine the
validity of the income statistics. However, even if such grown-up
children do not contribute labour to the farm on a regular basis, it
seems highly unlikely that they would not help out at seasonal labour
peaks; to some extent they still form part of the agricultural labour
force. The notion of personal income implies the freedom to dispose at
will, and it is far from certain that, for example, the old-age pension
of a retired relative living in can be regarded as at the general
disposal of the household.

Ideally, a distinction should be drawn between the household as a social
unit for domestic budgeting (the housekeeping unit, or *single budget
household*[^2], comprising only those people who pool income and
expenditure) and the household unit in the domiciliary sense (the
*accommodation* or *dwelling household*, consisting of the people living
under the same roof). Of course, any one farm may have more than one
household associated with it, and within the dwelling household there
could be several single budget households. In the absence of firm
information on intra-household financial integration and the diverse
forms it takes, a case exists for calculating household incomes using
both concepts. This would imply data collection for all people living in
the same dwelling, but only including the incomes of some of them when
using the *single budget household* concept. Unfortunately, within the
EU few countries have sufficient data for both approaches to be explored
and compared. Nevertheless, the UNECE Handbook recommends that a
flexible but transparent approach be taken to the definition of a
household. While the target should be the concept of the *single budget
household,* data should also be available for the complete *dwelling
household* to facilitate comparisons, both internationally and within
national data sources

3.  **The classification of households as agricultural**

    Neither the SNA93 nor the Canberra Group explicitly considers what
    characteristics should cause a household to be classified as being
    an agricultural household rather than one belonging to some other
    socio-professional group. Yet the manner in which the agricultural
    community is defined strongly influences the utility of statistics
    to assist in policymaking decisions and analysis and carries
    important implications for the results, both in terms of the numbers
    of households that qualify and the income results.

Several criteria can be used to qualify households as agricultural, and
the one which is appropriate will depend on the purpose for which the
selection is needed. The issue for the EU has been discussed in the
context of which households comprise the agricultural community \[Hill,
1990\] with a longer history of studies in the US that is particularly
concerned with the recipients of the rewards from farming \[Banks *et
al,* 1989\]. The main criteria that have been used include

-   residence on a farm (though this requires a satisfactory definition
    of a farm);

-   ownership of agricultural land, perhaps with a minimum size
    qualification to eliminate large gardens. Some but not all of these
    owners will be farmers, the share of owner-occupation varying widely
    between countries.

-   contribution of some working time to agricultural production

-   deriving an income from agricultural production (in which income may
    take any form or may be restricted to that arising from
    self-employment, or independent, activity such as operating a farm
    business for financial gain)

A common difficulty with applying each of these is the distinction that
must be drawn between the consumption and production aspects of
household activities. For example, hobby gardening might be considered
as not being part of the economic activity that comprises the production
of agricultural commodities. However, with an increase in the size of
the garden, or where domestic production is for subsistence (that is, it
substitutes for income-generating activity that could be used to
purchase these commodities), this boundary is far less clear.

Discussion at recent international meetings seems to have settled on
two-stage approach to classification. The first is to determine a
"broad" coverage according to the above criteria, singly or in
combination. The heterogeneity of agriculture's structure mean that this
will include many household-firms for which there may be little or no
interest to users of statistics. For example, agricultural policymakers
may only be interested in households that are mainly dependent on income
from farming, or where they control land areas above a particular size
threshold. Thus classification systems should be flexible, so that
"narrow" definitions can be applied within the "broad" context, for
example, drawing out only those households where income from farming is
the main livelihood (income source) of the household[^3]. Various
policy-relevant combinations of income derived from and the percentage
of time used for agriculture, together with situations where the
combinations might have policy relevance have been described \[Hill,
2000\]\[Ahearn and Lee, 1991\].

Several issues of a technical nature are encountered in applying such
classification systems. These include

-   the practical difficulty of measuring income or labour input on a
    household basis, which may lead to the substitution of a system
    based on the income or labour of a *reference person* (typically the
    head of household)

-   income instability in agriculture, that can lead to fluctuations in
    number of households and artefacts in the movement in average
    income. Solutions include the use of income averaging in a formal or
    informal way, or the subjective combining of several criteria, such
    as requesting respondents to indicate their "main occupation".
    Evidence from Germany and Norway suggests that taking a three-year
    period removes most of the unpredictable variation in incomes
    \[Hegrenes *et al.,* 2001\].

-   the problem associated with measuring a shrinking sector. In line
    with the historic trend, snapshot statistics will relate to a
    declining number of households. Those households which are most
    successful in diversification into non-agricultural activities
    sooner of later will fall outside the agricultural group defined in
    the "narrow" sense and join some other. The use of a panel approach
    gets over this problem.

The above latter two points underline the desirability of having data
that enables a study of individual cases to be made longitudinally
through time. This represents a major challenge to the way that official
statistics are organised; longitudinal analysis of a constant sample is
at present unusual and data are not organised in ways that makes this
easy. The need for this demographic approach is, of course, something
that is shared by studies of businesses in other sectors.

However, far more conceptual issues are to be faced that challenge
common practice in agricultural statistics. Often lying behind them in
most OECD countries is the model of the family farm, a potent but
ill-defined concept but where self-employment is a key characteristic.
In the EU hired workers on farms and their families have not been
treated *de facto* as part of the "agricultural community" at which the
CAP is targeted. The legal status of the directors of family farms
arranged as companies (for tax or inheritance reasons) who are *de jure*
employees of their own companies has been accommodated in the EU by
treating as if they were partners in unincorporated farm businesses
(which they closely resemble in terms of behaviour). However, the
enlargement of the EU has brought in several new Member States in which
(a) the workers on large agricultural units that have legal status
(typically formerly units of socialised agriculture) represent a
significant proportion of the workforce in agriculture and are regarded
nationally at targets of agricultural policy, and (b) subsistence
production on household plots represents a substantial proportion of the
output of agricultural commodities and, for the households concerned, a
source of livelihood that is far above what might be regarded as "hobby"
production. The proposed solution for the UNECE's handbook is, following
the lead of Eurostat's IAHS statistics, to treat the households of
employed workers on these large units as a special category, to be
included or excluded from general income statistics according to
analytical need.

4.  **The definition of income**

The difference between the two approaches to agricultural household
income statistics (national accounts, as represented by Eurostat's IAHS
statistics, and microeconomic household accounts) is perhaps at its
sharpest when considering the concept of income and its definition.
While both cover the flow of resources towards households and estimate
disposable income (after the deduction of non-optional uses such as
personal taxation), the details are different. This is not surprising,
given that the purpose in national accounts is to trace all flows
between the households sector and other sectors (including insurance,
government, charities etc). In contrast, microeconomic work is focused
on distributional analysis, in particular the study of poverty, and on
income as a means of improving *current* economic wellbeing, as
reflected in the ability "today" to consume goods and services. Resource
flows that result in the ability to consume "tomorrow", such as employer
contributions to pension funds and interest accumulated by these funds,
are not usually seen by households as affecting their ability to consume
"today" (even if they are aware of them) and are thus of less concern to
microeconomic statisticians. Certain items (such as contributions to
charities) appear in national accounts as deductions before the
calculation of disposable income, whereas the microeconomic approach
would regard them as a way of using disposable income.

Within microeconomic methodology the Canberra Group proposes a standard
definition that is comprehensive in terms of its coverage of both cash
and near cash items and the imputed value of fringe benefits and other
income in kind. Like the IAHS definition based in national accounts,
provision is made for adding to net disposable income the value of
social benefits provided in kind by the state (such as education and
health services) to create an "adjusted" disposable income figure.
However, the Group also recognises that many imputed forms of income are
contentious or are difficult to calculate. It therefore puts forward a
simplified definition that omits most of these. .This reduced list,
however, is intended for use within the national context which is
dominated by waged households and is not particularly appropriate to
agricultural households. For example, it omits the imputed rental value
of domestic accommodation (which can be of considerable importance in an
agricultural context and is often calculated as part of farm accounts
surveys) and underplays the significance of income in kind that the
household obtains from being involved in agricultural production. Income
in kind is particularly significant to farm households and, while being
of special importance to farmers in less developed countries, is by no
means insignificant in richer countries, especially to those occupiers
whose main purpose is orientated towards lifestyle or hobby agriculture.
The subsistence production on private household plots of workers in
large-scale agricultural enterprises in some of the countries with
formerly collectivised (socialised) agricultures are another example of
the importance of output for own consumption and income in kind.
Consequently, when drawing up its Handbook of recommendations, the UNECE
has adjusted the simplified list to create a definition of disposable
income shown in Figure 1.

5.  **Data sources**

The final, and perhaps the most significant issue, can be dealt with
briefly. Progress in developing data systems capable of generating
official income statistics that might allow, for example, the study of
poverty in agriculture or the drawing of comparisons between
agricultural households and other socio-professional groups has been, in
some countries, painfully slow[^4], thereby impeding progress in the
provision of statistics at international level where completeness of
coverage of countries and harmonisation in methodology are prerequisites
for use at a high level (as by the European Commission).

**Figure 1 The UNECE draft Handbook recommended definition of net
disposable income for application to agricultural households**

> **Net income from self-employment** (operation of unincorporated
> businesses, or incorporated businesses that can be treated as *quasi*
> unincorporated because of family operation and ownership) after
> deduction of intermediate consumption items, interest on business
> loans, rents on land and business property, and a depreciation
> allowance for capital consumption. This will include net profit or
> loss in money form and the value of other income in kind, such as the
> value of output used for barter and for own-consumption, net of cost
> of inputs used in their production. *(Note: more explicit treatment
> than in Canberra Group \[2001\] recommendations)*
>
> \(a\) self‑employment in agriculture (money income and in kind)
>
> \(b\) self‑employment in other industries (money income and in kind)
>
> *(c) imputed rental value of owned dwelling (Note: Item added to
> Canberra Group recommendations)*
>
> **+ Cash wages and salaries**, earned from dependent activity in
> enterprises (institutional units) that may be agricultural or
> non-agricultural in nature (*Note: the value of fringe benefits and
> other income in kind is not included)*
>
> (= Primary income)
>
> **+ Rent received**

(a) net rents from the letting of property other than land

(b) net rents from the letting of land

> **+ Other property income**

(a) net interest received (interest received less interest paid, though
    payments should not include interest already deducted in calculating
    profits)

(b) dividends received

> **+ Social transfers received**

(a) Social insurance benefits from employers' schemes

(b) Social insurance benefits in cash from government schemes

(c) Universal social assistance benefits in cash from government

(d) Means-tested social assistance benefits in cash from government

> **+ Other current inflows**
>
> Regular inter-household cash transfers received such as transfers from
> relatives living and working abroad)
>
> **= TOTAL INCOME**
>
> \- **Current taxes on income and wealth**
>
> **- Non-discretionary social contributions (payments to social
> security schemes)**

a)  by members of agricultural households as self-employed person

b)  employee social contributions (only) relating to income from
    employment

> = **NET DISPOSABLE INCOME** *(Note: this is not adjusted for the
> receipt of social benefits in kind)*

Various types of data sources can be found that have been used singly or
in combination (including farm accounts surveys that also cover other
sources of income, taxation records and household budget surveys). Each
has its strengths and weaknesses. In particular, the fact that in some
OECD countries[^5] many farmers are not taxed on their actual incomes
but according to standard rates or for other reasons fall outside the
tax net means that tax records are often not a suitable basis for income
statistics. Countries that are able at administrative level to combine
datasets in a flexible way (such as by forming income statistics
registers) have a distinct advantage. However, in other situations
national legislation may prevent such cross-linking

6.  **Comments and discussion**

The last five years has seen an acceleration in the concern among
agricultural statisticians with the agricultural household to match what
they see is a growing information need. The notion of keeping
agricultural statistics up-to-date is by no means new, with attempts to
avoid obsolescence going back to at least 1972 in the USA \[AAEA,
1972\]. .The UNECE's forthcoming Handbook on methodology will give
guidance and make recommendations on key points where there is, as yet,
no agreed standard with the same authority as the SNA93 and its
satellites (such the Economic Accounts for Agriculture, applied in the
EU and, in its earlier version, adopted by the OECD for its work on
aggregate accounting). This must be seen as an essential step in filling
a gap in agricultural statistics at microeconomic level, something that
has been highlighted by a number of commentators.

But as work with Eurostat's IAHS statistics has proved, devising and
agreeing a methodology is, by itself, insufficient to ensure the
development of income statistics for agricultural households. Basic data
must exist to which that methodology can be applied. In contrast with
the relative cheapness of methodological work, setting up new data
sources is likely to be expensive, and modifying existing ones to enable
them to service new needs may be problematic. Extending farm accounts
surveys to include questions on the household may unsettle relationships
between organisations collecting the data and co-operating farmers, and
making better use of taxation records (where appropriate) may carry
political costs.

This leads to what is perhaps the most central of the key issues. This
is the challenge facing statisticians to convey to users, and especially
those that provide the resources for statistics on agriculture, their
concern that, for a host of reasons, information on the income of
agricultural households is important. Ultimately the worth of better
statistics on agricultural household incomes (leading the improved
understanding of the performance of the agriculture industry, its
response to policy signals, more efficient policies directed at low
incomes among the farming community etc.) has to be set against the
resource costs of this information, which is a political judgement.

**References**

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Association Joint Committee on Agricultural Statistics) (1972), 'Our
obsolete data systems: new directions and opportunities'*, Amer. J.
agric. Econ*., 54, 867‑80

Ahearn, M. and Lee, J. E. (1991), 'Multiple Job-holding among Farm
Operator Households in the United States', in Hallberg, M. C., Findeis,
J. L. and Lass, D. A. (eds.)(1991), *Multiple Job-holding among Farm
Families,* Iowa State University Press, Ames

Banks, V, Butler, M. and Kalbacher, J. (1989), *Alternative Definitions
of Farm People,* Staff Report No 89-9, USDA ERS, Washington

Canberra Group (2001), *Expert Group on Household Income Statistics --
The Canberra Group. Final Report and Recommendations.* Ottawa. ISBN
0-9688524-0-8

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(Rev.1),* Theme 5 Series E, Eurostat, Luxembourg

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Hagenaars, A. J. M. and Van Praag, B. M. S. (1985), \'A Synthesis of
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Hegrenes, A. Hill, B, and Lien, G. (2001), Income instability among
agricultural households -- evidence from Norway *Journal of Farm
Management,* 11(1), 1-12

Hill, B. (1990), 'In search of the Common Agricultural Policy\'s
\"agricultural community\"', *J. agric. Econ*., 41(3), 316-26

Hill, B. (2000), *Farm Incomes, Wealth and Agricultural Policy. 3^rd^
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Comparisons,\' *Quarterly Rev. agric. Econ*., 115‑127

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Ruggles, R. And Ruggles, N. D. (1986), 'The integration of macro and
micro data for the household sector', *Review of Income and Wealth,* 32,
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[^1]: For a review of approaches see Hagenaars *et al.,*1985. It is
    likely that different coefficients should be applied at different
    levels of income, though this is not usually done. The choice of
    scales and equivalence figures will reflect differences in social
    conditions, and these are likely to change over time. It is also
    likely that the coefficients that should apply to agricultural
    households will differ from those for other socio-professional
    groups, reflecting the particular social conditions found there.
    However, it appears that whatever equivalence scales are adopted,
    arbitrary judgements are inevitable. It is obvious that the use of
    equivalence scales is made less critical if a *single-budget*
    definition of a household is adopted, in effect narrowing coverage
    to the couple and dependent children.

[^2]: In taxation statistics when using the *fiscal household*
    approximate to the *single budget household* (though the move to
    independent taxation of individuals is eroding this).

[^3]: Eurostat, for its IAHS statistics, takes an agricultural household
    to be one in which the main income source of the household reference
    person (typically the head of household) is from independent
    activity in agriculture.

[^4]: Within EU15 no single satisfactory data source at microeconomic
    level yet exists for studying the income of agricultural households
    in Belgium, Spain, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, and the
    United Kingdom.

[^5]: For example, in the EU a substantial proportion of farmers in
    Germany, France and Italy are taxed on this basis.