The Farm Accountancy Data Network is a contractual obligation of the Member States of the European Union (EU), based on Regulation (EC) 1217/2009 and all subsequent amendments thereto. It is an integrated system for collecting accounting information on the activities of agricultural and livestock farms and covers the whole range of agricultural and livestock activities taking place on a holding as well as certain non-agricultural activities such as agro-tourism, forestry, etc. Information is collected on an annual basis, from a representative sample of farmers. It concerns the physical and structural characteristics of the holding, such as the area under cultivation, the number of livestock, the workforce of the holding, as well as financial and accounting data such as subsidies received by a holding, its income and expense.
The participation of farmers and stock farmers in the sample is voluntary. The information collected is confidential and is only available to the EU's Directorate-General for Agriculture.
Objectives
FADN serves as a tool for gathering information with the following main objectives:
1. Assessing Agricultural Income in Member States.
2. To study the implications of EU policy in the agricultural section.
Operation
The operation of FADN is regulated by:
1. The FADN Commission Committee, which monitors the program’s implementation in all member states. This committee is responsible for legislation and providing appropriate information to the relevant EU institutions. The Commission Committee includes representatives from all EU member states. The representative for Cyprus is the Department of Agriculture, of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, based on Article 6 of Law 138 (I) of 2015.
2. The National Committee, which is responsible for approving the selection plan of the agricultural and livestock holdings participating in the sample. In Cyprus, this committee comprises six members and is chaired by the Director of the Department of Agriculture. Participating entities include the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, the General Accounting Office, the Cyprus Agricultural Payments Organization, the Statistical Service and the Agricultural Research Institute, each represented in the committee.
Scope of Observations
All commercial agricultural and livestock holdings are within the scope of FADN. According to EU Legislation, a holding is considered commercial if it, trades a portion of its production, it is large enough to ensure its owner a sufficient income to support his family and exceeds a minimum Economic Size.
The economic size criterion of the holding is the Standard Output *1 (SO) defined as the value of the produced product per hectare or animal. In Cyprus, farms with an economic size of at least 4, are eligible for participation in the sample. >= €4000.
*1. The standard output of an agricultural product (crop or livestock), abbreviated as SO, is the average monetary value of the agricultural output at farm-gate price, in euro per hectare or per head of livestock.
Sample selection
The sample is selected by random stratified sampling. Field of observation are all agricultural and livestock farms registered in the Census of Agriculture. Eligible is the holding which meets the following criteria:
1. The Region Criterion: For the purposes of FADN, the EU is divided into 139 regions after Croatia's accession (July 1, 2013), with Cyprus being considered as one region with a code of 740.
2. The Economic Size criterion, which is calculated on the basis of the standard output of all primary products of the holding and exceeds 4,000.
3. The Farm Type criterion, which is determined on the basis of the percentage of participation of a branch or of a combination of more branches in the Total Standard Output of the holding.
This ensures the homogeneity of agricultural holdings in all EU Member States.
Practical implementation
At the beginning of each calendar year, personal visits are made by FADN staff to the farmers and breeders participating in the sample to conduct the opening census, based on the FADN Questionnaire. During the year, visits are conducted to the farmers / breeders of the sample, in order to document the activities of the holding for the current year, in a detailed manner. These activities concern the labor force, plant and animal capital as well as the income and expenses of the farm. Finally, in December, the Closing Census is conducted with personal visits to farmers and breeders again.
The data, after appropriate processing, are then sent online to the EU database (12 months after the end of the calendar year) and are followed by checks in the EU database.
Results
FADN is been applied in Cyprus since 2004. All FADN results concerning Cyprus are published, together with those of the other member states, on the relevant
FADN Community Committee website.
In this link you can find information regarding the Farm Accounting Data Network (FADN), as well as possible developments concerning it, such as its transformation into the Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN).
National legislation:
The Establishment and Operation of the Farm Accountancy Data Network Law of 2015 (L.138(I)/2015) (in Greek)