REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the functioning of Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 concerning European statistics on permanent crops
Date: 2019-02-05
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU Member State, EU statistics, agricultural statistics, data collection, data transmission, fruit-growing, orchard, regional statistics, vineyard, viticulture

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 5.2.2019 COM(2019) 50 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the functioning of Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 concerning European statistics on permanent crops  
 
 
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE 
COUNCIL 

on the functioning of Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 of the European Parliament and of the 
Council of 13 December 2011 concerning European statistics on permanent crops 

1. 

BACKGROUND 

Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 (‘the Regulation’) concerning European statistics on permanent 
crops1  entered  into  force  on  1 January  2012.  It  repealed  two  legal  acts:  Council  Regulation 
(EEC) No 357/79 of 5 February 1979 on ‘statistical surveys of areas under vines’2 and Directive 
2001/109/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 December 2001 ‘concerning 
the  statistical  surveys  to  be  carried  out  by  the  Member  States  in  order  to  determine  the 
production  potential  of  plantations  of  certain  species  of  fruit  trees’3.  Regulation  (EU)  No 
1337/2011 covers two structural data collections on permanent crops: 

  orchard data collection on apple, pear, peach, nectarine, orange, lemon, small citrus fruit 

and olive trees and vines for table grapes; and 

  vineyard data collection on vineyards producing grapes for wine, raisins and dual purpose 

grapes. 

So far, there have been three data collections organised: two  on orchards (2012 and 2017) and 
one on vineyards (2015). 

Article 13 of the Regulation stipulates that ‘by 31 December 2018 and every 5 years thereafter, 
the Commission shall review the functioning of this Regulation. In the context of this review, the 
Commission shall assess whether it is necessary to produce all the data referred to in Article 4. 
Where the Commission considers that some of those data are not any longer required, it shall be 
empowered  to  adopt  delegated  acts  in  accordance  with  Article 11  that  delete  certain  data  from 
Annexes I and II’. 

This report summarises the main findings of the review on the Regulation’s functioning. It refers 
to the European agricultural statistics strategy 2020 endorsed by the European Statistical System 

1 

2 

3 

Regulation  (EU)  No  1337/2011  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  13 December  2011 
concerning European statistics on permanent crops and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 357/79 and 
Directive 2001/109/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council Text with EEA relevance, OJ L 347, 
30.12.2011, p. 7. 
Council Regulation (EEC) No 357/79 of 5 February 1979 on statistical surveys of areas under vines, OJ L 
54, 5.3.1979, p. 124. 
Directive  2001/109/EC  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  19 December  2001  concerning 
the statistical surveys to be carried out by the Member States in order to determine the production potential 
of plantations of certain species of fruit trees, OJ L 13, 16.1.2002, p. 21. 

1 

 
 
 
                                                           
Committee in its 27th meeting on 19 November 2015, and presents the new legal framework for 
structural  statistics  on  permanent  crops  repealing  Regulation  (EU)  No  1337/2011,  the 
functioning of which is the subject of this report.  

2. 

MAIN FINDINGS AND ASSESSMENT 

Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 is to some extent problematic to implement, as indicated by the 
experiences  from  the  2012  and  2017  orchard  data  collections  and  the  2015  vineyard  data 
collection, the feedback from various expert group meetings4 and the quality reports provided by 
the Member States. The user needs have also changed over the past decade. 

2.1  

Issues linked to the data collection 

Based on the analysis of the data and quality reports it is clear that the orchard data collection 
and vineyard data collection have some in-built challenges. 

2.1.1 Orchard data collection 

There are two consequences from having the data variables (species group, colour of fruit, time 
of harvest, age, density) cross-tabled against each other. Firstly, the Member States have to use 
very  high  sampling  rates.  Among  those  countries  which  did  not  have  an  orchard  register,  the 
average sampling rate was very high — 54 %. Therefore, five of these countries had to organise 
a census to collect data on orchards.  Secondly, the detailed breakdown of the data leads to costly 
and  time  consuming  data  collections.  The  average  cost  of  the  orchard  data  collection  (per 
reference  year)  is  approximately  EUR  220 000  per  country,  ranging  from  EUR  2 500  to 
EUR 900 000.  The  labour  input  in  statistical  authorities  ranges  from  0.1  full  time  equivalent 
(FTE) to 6.2 FTE. There is also a very heavy burden on respondents due to very large samples 
and long questionnaires requiring a lot of area measurements. 

The  large  investment  made  at  national  level  for  collecting  very  detailed  information 
unfortunately does not bring the full benefit to the data users as some of the collected data cannot 
be released due to statistical confidentiality. 

The species groups defined in Annex I of the Regulation, in particular for apples and pears, do 
not well reflect the distribution of species groups in the EU. For dessert apples, 34 % of the tree 
area  is  classified  in  the  group  ‘Others’  and  for  pears  18 %.  The  problem  is  even  bigger  in  the 

4  

Crop  Statistics  working  group  meetings  (2012-2017),  standing  committee  for  agricultural  statistics  (until 
2014) and Directors’ Group for Agricultural statistics (from 2015 onwards). 

2 

 
 
 
 
 
                                                           
northern and eastern parts of Europe, where in some countries almost all orchards belong to the 
class ‘Other’.  

It  is  difficult  to  collect  voluntary  data  on  apple,  pear  and  peach  trees  that  are  planted  for 
industrial processing  as in many cases the weather, market conditions and quality aspects guide 
the yearly decisions of farmers on whether they sell the fruits for consumption or for industrial 
processing more than the fruit tree variety. 

2.1.2 Vineyard data collection 

Article 3 (4) of the Regulation stipulates that data on vines other than table grapes (Annex II of 
the Regulation) ‘shall be provided using the data available in the vineyard register implemented 
in accordance with Article 185a of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 for all the holdings included 
in  this  register,  as  defined  in  point  (a)  of  Article 3(1)  of  Regulation  (EC)  No  436/2009’.  The 
obligatory  link  between  the  vineyard  register  and  the  vineyard  data  collection  under  the 
Regulation poses problems in several Member States as the register is not always up to date and 
it does not contain all the variables listed in the Regulation. The obligation to use the register as 
the sole data source is also problematic from the perspective of the European Statistics Code of 
practice5. This is because Article 6.2 states that the choice of statistical sources should be based 
on statistical considerations, and Article 12.1 requires that the source data are regularly assessed 
and validated.  

2.2.  User needs 

The consultation with the policy DGs confirmed that the Commission needs to be kept accurately 
informed about the potential of plantations to produce certain species of permanent crops within 
the EU. To ensure that the common agricultural policy is properly administered, the Commission 
requires  data  on  permanent  crops  to  be  regularly  provided.  However,  the  screening  of  data 
showed that significant measures can be carried out to reduce burden, particularly for collecting 
data on orchards.  

5  

European  statistics  code  of  practice  for  national  statistical  authorities  and  Eurostat  (EU  statistical 
authority),  endorsed  by 
the  European  Statistical  System  Committee  on  16  November  2017: 
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4031688/8971242/KS-02-18-142-EN-N.pdf/e7f85f07-91db-4312-
8118-f729c75878c7 (only available in English). 

3 

 
 
 
 
 
                                                           
The  following  variables  are  no  longer  needed  as  part  of  the  structural  statistical  data  that  are 
provided for the policy monitoring needs: 

• 
• 
• 

species groups for apples and pears; 
colour of fruit for peaches, nectarines and table grapes; and 
the time of harvest for peaches, nectarines, apricots, oranges and small citrus fruits. 

In  addition,  there  is  no  longer  a  need  to  cross-tabulate  the  variables  used  for  age  and  density, 
although they can be collected separately. The regularity of the data collection can be 6-7 years 
as the structure of orchards and vineyards is relatively stable. Under the Regulation the Member 
States  cultivating  the  vines  on  at  least  500  ha  had  to  implement  the  data  collection.  For  the 
orchards the threshold was 1000 ha at national level for any single type of fruit tree. To align the 
threshold  to  the  other  measures  and  registers  in  the  wine  sector,  it  should  also  be  1000  ha  for 
wine vineyards. 

The policy needs data that better represents regional areas. Under the Regulation the data on fruit 
trees were collected at NUTS 16 level and the data on vineyards for wine production at NUTS 2 
level. As these data are important for analysing the regional potential of orchards and vineyards 
both  in  the  context  of  market  management  and  in  the  case  of  a  crisis,  all  structural  data  on 
orchards and vineyard are needed at NUTS2 level.   

3. 

EUROPEAN AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS STRATEGY 2020 AND THE NEW 
GENERATION  OF  AGRICULTURAL  STATISTICS:  IMPLICATIONS  FOR 
REGULATION (EU) No 1337/2011 

Eurostat  has  worked  intensively  on  the  ‘Strategy  for  Agricultural  Statistics  towards  2020  and 
beyond’7 with the data users (mostly other Commission departments and EU institutions) and the 
national statistical institutes since 2014. The agricultural statistics strategy aims to 

  efficiently produce statistics, which meet the users’ needs; 
  not significantly increase the burden on respondents and on statistical systems, and make 

more statistics available; 
improve the consistency between the agricultural statistics sub-domains; 

 
  clarify and streamline the concepts and definitions; 
 
improve the quality of agricultural statistics; and 
 
improve integration of agricultural, forestry, land use and environmental statistics. 

6  
7  

      Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics 

Commission staff working document impact assessment accompanying the strategy for agricultural 
statistics 2020 and beyond and subsequent potential legislative scenarios 
SWD/2016/0430 final — 2016/0389 (COD), 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52016SC0430 (only available in 
English). 

4 

 
 
 
                                                           
The implementation phase started after the European Statistical System Committee endorsed the 
strategy in 2015. In the impact assessment the two-step implementation strategy was deemed to 
best suit the needs of the statistical system and data users. 

• 

• 

The first step is the Framework Regulation on Integrated Farm Statistics (IFS), which 
covers  the  Farm  Structure  Survey  currently  covered  by  the  Regulation  on  farm 
surveys8,  the  statistics  on  the  structure  of  orchards  and  vineyards  under  Regulation 
(EU)  No  1337/2011  and  some  agri-environmental  indicators.  The  structural  data 
collections on orchards and vineyards will take place under the orchard and vineyards 
modules  of  Regulation  2018/1091  (IFS  Regulation)9,  adopted  on  18 July 2018. 
Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 has been repealed with effect from 1 January 2022. 
The second step is the SAIO regulation (statistics on agricultural inputs and outputs) 
covering, among others, crop production and crop balances. 

The orchard and vineyard modules under the IFS Regulation will have less detailed data content 
on the crop characteristics but the data will be provided to Eurostat as micro data linked to the 
core farm data. This allows data to be used more flexibly and to better meet the user needs. The 
micro data will allow for cross-tabulation, showing which kind of farmer grows different types 
of permanent crops and how these farmers work (e.g. age, education and training, other farming 
activities, other gainful activities, whether they are located in less favoured areas etc.). 

3.1 Orchard module in the IFS Regulation 

The structural statistics on orchards will be covered by the orchard module in the IFS Regulation. 
It  solves  the  problems  highlighted  in  Chapter  2  and  incorporates  the  Commission’s  current 
needs. The orchard module includes  approximately  600 variables less than what  is included in 
Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011. This is expected to reduce the cost and the burden of collecting 
data, even taking into account the precision requirements at NUTS 2 level. 

The orchard data collection under the IFS orchard module will take place in 2023. 

8  

9  

Regulation (EC) No 1166/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on 
farm structure surveys and the survey on agricultural production methods and repealing Council Regulation 
(EEC) No 571/88, OJ L 321, 1.12.2008, p. 14. 
Regulation  (EU)  No  2018/1091of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  18   July  2018  on 
integrated farm statistics and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1166/2008 and (EU) No 1337/2011, OJ L 200, 
7.8.2018, p. 1. 

5 

 
 
 
 
                                                           
3.2 Vineyard module in the IFS Regulation 

The content of the vineyard data collection under the IFS Regulation’s vineyard module will stay 
mostly as it was under Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011. The only difference is the definition of 
main  vine  varieties.  Currently  the  main  varieties  are  defined  as  all  those  vine  varieties  which 
have a minimum of 500 ha on national level. Under the IFS Regulation they are defined from the 
bottom up: each wine-grower reports the 10 largest varieties grown on the holding and the main 
varieties at national level will be established from these varieties. 

Under  the  IFS  vineyard  module  the  Member  States  may  choose  to  use  the  best  available  data 
source  for  the  vineyard  data  collection  (either  a  data  collection  or  the  vineyard  register). 
However,  the  Commission  encourages  the  Member  States  to  use  the  vineyard  register  data  as 
much as possible as it reduces the burden on respondents and the costs. To improve the quality of 
the vineyard register data the Commission plans to publish a call for proposals for grants aiming 
to improve the interoperability of the vineyard register and statistical data collection (including 
the statistical holding register). 

The  collection  of  vineyard  data  under  the  IFS  Regulation  will  take  place  in  2026.  The  2020 
vineyard  data  collection  will  still  take  place  under  Regulation  (EU)  No  1337/2011  to  allow 
enough time to align the statistical holding register with the vineyard register, which is necessary 
under the IFS Regulation. 

4. 

CONCLUSIONS 

Regulation (EU) No 1337/2011 has not worked as was planned when it was adopted. This is due 
to the data content and the cross-tabulation of data being too detailed. These factors contributed 
to the heavy burden on respondents and high data collection costs, resulting in confidential data.  
The user needs also changed over the years and currently the Commission requires fewer details. 

Due  to  the  above-mentioned  reasons  and  in  order  to  implement  the  ‘Strategy  for  Agricultural 
Statistics  towards  2020  and  beyond’  the  orchard  and  vineyard  data  collections  covered  by 
Regulation  (EU)  No  1337/2011  are  integrated  into  the  new  IFS  Regulation.  Regulation 
1337/2011 has been repealed, taking effect after the 2020 vineyard data collection (data delivery 
in 2022). 

The new legal basis for the structural data on orchards and vineyards will better meet user needs 
and it is expected to reduce the burden on respondents. The orchard and vineyard module data 
under  the  IFS  Regulation  will  allow  the  holdings  cultivating  fruit  trees  and  vines  to  be 
thoroughly analysed. This is thanks to ample possibilities offered by the delivery of micro data, 
which will allow the structure of the orchards and vineyards to be linked with the full structural 

6 

 
 
 
 
data  of  the  farms.  Therefore,  this  will  strengthen  the  evidence  base  used  for  taking  decisions 
affecting the sector. 

7