Council Regulation (EC) No 1217/2009 of 30 November 2009 setting up a network for the collection of accountancy data on the incomes and business operation of agricultural holdings in the European Community (Codified version)

CHAPTER I

CREATION OF A FARM SUSTAINABILITY DATA NETWORK

Article 1

FSDN data shall cover the topics set out in Annex -I. The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts, in accordance with Article 19a, amending Annex -I in order to modify those topics or to add new ones. When exercising its power to adopt those delegated acts, the Commission shall:

(a) ensure that the delegated acts are duly justified and do not create significant additional burden on the Member States or returning holdings;

(b) carry out analyses of the relevance, feasibility and proportionality of such an amendment, including the availability and quality of appropriate data sources, in particular relevant administrative sources, and take the results of those analyses duly into account;

(c) ensure that new topics added are linked to the CAP objectives;

(d) not add new topics until 20 December 2028;

(e) adopt those delegated acts, when new topics are added, at least one year before the date of application of the related implementing act as referred to in Article 8(4).

Article 2

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply:

(1) “farmer” means a natural or legal person whose holding is situated in the Union;

(2) “farm” or “holding” means a single unit, both technically and economically, that has a single management and that undertakes economic activities in agriculture in accordance with the general use of those terms in the context of Union agricultural surveys and censuses;

(3) “category of holding” means a group of holdings that belong to the same category, as regards the type of farming and economic size, as defined in the Union typology for holdings referred to in Article 5b;

(4) “returning holding” means any holding for which a farm return is compiled for the purposes of the FSDN;

(5) “farm return” means the form, either to be compiled or already compiled, with data about the returning holding excluding the links and data referred to in Article 4a(1);

(6) “Farm Sustainability Data Network division” or “FSDN division” means the territory of a Member State, or any part thereof, delimited with a view to the selection of returning holdings; a list of such divisions is set out in Annex I;

(7) “data collector” means a liaison agency or an entity tasked by the liaison agency with collecting FSDN data;

(8) “standard output” means standard value of gross production;

(9) “personal data” means personal data as defined in Article 4, point (1), of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council (⁴) and in Article 3, point (1), of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council (⁵);

(10) “individual data” means data associated with a returning holding which allow the holding or the farmer to be identified, either directly or indirectly, and which can be personal data or data concerning legal persons;

(11) “anonymised data” means data in a form which does not allow natural or legal persons to be identified directly or indirectly;

(12) “pseudonymised data” means individual data that can no longer be attributed to a specific natural or legal person without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organisational measures to ensure that the individual data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural or legal person;

(13) “aggregated data” means the output resulting from combinations or calculations based on data related to several returning holdings.

Article 3

In order to ensure that the list of FSDN divisions can be updated following a request by a Member State, the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts, in accordance with Article 19a, amending Annex I with respect to the list of FSDN divisions per Member State.

CHAPTER II

DATA FOR COMPILING FARM RETURNS AND DATA LINKAGE

Article 4

The liaison agencies shall have the right to access and use, free of charge, the following data sources:

(a) the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) established by Regulation (EU) 2021/2116 of the European Parliament and of the Council (⁶);

(b) the system for the identification and registration of kept terrestrial animals established by Regulation (EU) 2016/429 of the European Parliament and of the Council (⁷);

(c) the vineyard register implemented in accordance with Article 145 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (⁸);

(d) the organic farming registers set up pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council (⁹);

(e) Member States’ data for performing the monitoring and evaluation of CAP Strategic Plans (DME) obtained in accordance with the implementing act adopted on the basis of Article 133 of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 of the European Parliament and of the Council (¹⁰);

(f) where relevant, farm-level records collected for the establishment by Member States of action programmes pursuant to Article 5 of Council Directive 91/676/EEC (¹¹);

(g) any other relevant data source accessible to Member States’ authorities.

Article 4a

In addition to the farm return, the Member States shall determine the links between the returning holding and the identifiers pertaining to that holding in the following datasets:

(a) DME;

(b) IACS. Member States shall send to the Commission either those links, or directly the data related to the returning holding in the datasets referred to in the first subparagraph, other than identifiers. The Member States which send the data directly shall provide the FSDN number of the returning holding.

The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts, in accordance with Article 19a, amending the list of datasets referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article and adding new appropriate and relevant datasets. When exercising its power to adopt those delegated acts, the Commission shall:

(a) ensure that the delegated acts are duly justified and do not create significant additional burden on the Member States or returning holdings;

(b) carry out analyses of the relevance, feasibility, proportionality and quality of such datasets and take the results of those analyses duly into account.

Article 5

The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts, in accordance with Article 19a, supplementing this Regulation with the rules on fixing the threshold referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph. Those rules shall ensure that farms of smaller economic size are adequately represented in the plans for the selection of returning holdings established by the Member States in accordance with Article 5a.

The Commission shall adopt, on the basis of data and input received from Member States, implementing acts fixing the threshold referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 19b(2).

To qualify as a returning holding, a holding shall:

(a) be covered by the field of the survey referred to in paragraph 1;

(b) be representative, together with the other holdings and at the level of each FSDN division, of the field of survey.

In exceptional cases, Member States may also adopt rules to address possible cases in which the number of returning holdings set in the plan for the selection of returning holdings is likely not to be achieved. Such rules, however, shall not provide for penalties for farmers.

Article 5a

The Commission shall adopt delegated acts, in accordance with Article 19a, laying down the rules by which Member States are to draw up such plans. Such rules shall ensure that plans for the selection of returning holdings:

— are drawn up on the basis of the most recent statistical data,

— are presented in accordance with the Union typology for holdings, and

— specify, in particular, the distribution of returning holdings per category of holding and the detailed rules for their selection.

Article 5b

The typology for holdings shall be used in particular for the presentation, by type of farming and by economic size class, of data collected through the Union farm structure surveys and the FSDN.

The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts, in accordance with Article 19a, fixing the reference period for the standard output.

The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts, in accordance with Article 19a, concerning the determination of the general and principal types of farming.

The correspondence between general and principal types of farming and particular types of farming specialisations corresponding to principal types of farming shall be specified.

The Commission shall adopt implementing acts laying down:

— methods for the calculation of particular types of farming specialisations referred to in paragraph 3 and for assigning the holding to a principal type of farming,

— the method for the calculation of the economic size of the holding,

— economic size classes for the holdings, referred to in paragraph 1,

— methods for the calculation of the output of the holding, and for estimating the contribution of other gainful activities to that output, for the purposes of paragraph 5,

— the method for the calculation to determine the standard outputs of each characteristic referred in paragraph 2, the procedures for collecting the corresponding data and the means of, and deadlines for, the transmission of the standard outputs to the Commission, in accordance with paragraph 6.

Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 19b(2).

Article 6

The National Committee shall take its decisions unanimously. In the event of unanimity not being achieved, decisions shall be taken by an authority appointed by the Member State.

The Regional Committee shall, in particular, have the duty of cooperating with the liaison agency referred to in Article 7 in selecting the returning holdings.

Article 7

Each Member State shall appoint a liaison agency the tasks of which shall be to:

(a) inform the National Committee, the Regional Committees and the data collectors of the applicable regulatory framework and to ensure proper implementation thereof;

(b) draw up the plan for the selection of returning holdings, to submit it to the National Committee for its approval and, thereafter, to forward it to the Commission;

(c) compile: (i) the list of returning holdings; (ii) where applicable, the list of the data collectors able to complete farm returns;

(d) produce the farm returns;

(e) verify that the farm returns have been duly completed and, where necessary, address any errors or inaccuracies detected;

(f) forward the duly completed farm returns to the Commission in the required format and within the set deadline;

(g) send the links or the data referred to in Article 4a(1);

(h) transmit the requests for information provided for in Article 17 to the National Committee, to the Regional Committees and to the data collectors, and forward the relevant answers to the Commission;

(i) offer to any returning holding the possibility to obtain its results, either from the liaison agency or from an organisation it appoints, as soon as possible but in any event no later than four months after the Commission confirms that the farm return is duly completed; where possible, those results shall include benchmarking information, comparing those results with regional, national, Union or sectoral averages;

(j) set out a plan to incentivise farmers' participation in the FSDN and submit it to the Commission together with the plan for the selection of returning holdings;

(k) make available, either by itself or by an organisation it appoints, the obtained results in the form of aggregated and anonymised data such as at regional, national, Union or sectoral level.

Article 8

The data provided by each duly completed farm return shall be such that it is possible to:

(a) describe the returning holding by reference to the main elements of its factors of production;

(b) describe the income of the holding in its various forms;

(c) describe the economic, environmental and social situation of the holding;

(d) verify the information given by appropriate means, such as on-the-spot checks and remote controls.

In order to ensure that the data collected by means of farm returns are comparable, irrespective of the returning holdings surveyed, the Commission shall adopt implementing acts laying down rules on the following:

(a) the variables and the definitions of variables linked to one or more of the topics set out in Annex -I;

(b) the start and the end of the reporting year;

(c) the form and layout of the farm return;

(d) the methods and deadlines for data transmission to the Commission, including possible extensions of deadlines and exemptions for specific variables that may be granted to a Member State upon justified request;

(e) the frequency of data transmission, which shall be annual or less frequent depending on the nature of variables. When adopting those implementing acts, the Commission shall, to the greatest extent possible, make use of variables available from existing data sources when adding, modifying or replacing variables, and take into account the need not to create significant additional burden on the Member States or returning holdings. Before adopting those implementing acts, the Commission shall analyse the feasibility of the proposed variables based, inter alia, on inputs from Member States, including the availability and quality of new and existing data sources, possible implementation of new methods, and the financial burden on the Member States and returning holdings. The results of that analysis shall be discussed in the committee referred to in Article 19b(1). The implementing acts referred to in this paragraph shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 19b(2).

Article 8a

CHAPTER IV

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 16

Article 16a

Article 16b

Article 17

Such requests for information made to the National Committee, to the Regional Committees or to the data collectors and the relevant answers shall be forwarded in writing through the liaison agency.

Article 19

The European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) shall finance expenditure covering:

(a) an amount payable to the Member States for the delivery of duly completed farm returns delivered within the set deadline up to the maximum number of returning holdings as fixed in accordance with Article 5a(2); where the total number of duly completed and delivered farm returns in respect of an FSDN division or a Member State is less than 80 % of the number of returning holdings laid down in accordance with Article 5a(2) and (3) for that FSDN division or for the Member State concerned, the amount applied for each farm return from that FSDN division or from the Member State concerned shall be reduced by 20 %; if such reduction was already applied for the two previous consecutive years in respect of an FSDN division or a Member State, the reduction shall be of 25 %;

(b) all the costs of the computerised data systems operated by the Commission for running and developing the FSDN and for the reception, verification, processing, interoperability and analysis of the data supplied by the Member States; those costs include, where appropriate, the costs of disseminating the results of those operations and the costs of studies into, and development of, other aspects of the FSDN.

Article 19a

Article 19b

In the case of implementing acts referred to in Article 4a(3) and Article 8(4), point (a), of this Regulation, where the Committee delivers no opinion, the Commission shall not adopt the draft implementing act and Article 5(4), third subparagraph, of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 shall apply.

Article 19c

The Commission shall submit to the European Parliament and to the Council by 20 December 2028 an evaluation report on the implementation of Article 4a and Article 7(1), point (g), accompanied, where appropriate, by a proposal for a legislative act amending Article 19(1), point (a).

Article 20

Regulation No 79/65/EEC is repealed.

References to the repealed Regulation shall be construed as references to this Regulation and shall be read in accordance with the correlation table in Annex III.

Article 21

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

ANNEX -I

List of topics

Economic

General information on the holding

Type of occupation

Assets and investments

Quotas and other rights

Debts and credits

Value added tax

Inputs

Land use and crops

Livestock production

Animal products and services

Market integration

Quality products – geographical indications

Membership in producer organisations

Risk management

Innovation and digitalisation

Other gainful activities related to the holding

Subsidies

Indicative share of off-farm income

Environment

Farming practices

Soil management

Nutrient use and management

Carbon farming

Greenhouse gas emissions and removals

Air pollution

Water use and management

Plant protection use

Antimicrobial use

Animal welfare

Biodiversity

Organic farming

Certification schemes

Energy consumption and energy production

Food loss on primary production level

Waste management

Social

Labour

Education

Gender balance

Working conditions

Social inclusion

Social security

Infrastructure and essential services

Generation renewal

ANNEX I

List of FSDN divisions

Belgium

1.Vlaanderen

2.Bruxelles — Brussel

3.Wallonie

Bulgaria

1.Северозападен (Severozapaden)

2.Северен централен (Severen tsentralen)

3.Североизточен (Severoiztochen)

4.Югозападен (Yugozapaden)

5.Южен централен (Yuzhen tsentralen)

6.Югоизточен (Yugoiztochen)

However, Bulgaria may constitute a single division until 31 December 2009

Czech Republic

Constitutes a single division

Denmark

Constitutes a single division

Germany