ITEM 7. Statistics on mineral fertiliser use in agriculture

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1 EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics Unit E-1: Farms, agro-environment and rural development Luxembourg, 2 August 2010 ESTAT/E1/AK CPSA/AE/094 Original: EN (available in EN) WORKING PARTY "AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT" OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE FOR AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS TO BE HELD IN LUXEMBOURG, BECH BUILDING ROOM QUETELET ON 7 AND 8 OCTOBER 2010, 9:30 A.M. CHAIRED BY: M. ERNENS ITEM 7. Statistics on mineral fertiliser use in agriculture 1

2 Item for discussion 1. Background Data on inorganic fertiliser consumption are needed for the AEI 5 "Mineral fertiliser consumption", AEI 15 "Gross nitrogen balance", AEI 16 "Risk of pollution by phosphorus", AEI 18 "Ammonia emissions", AEI 19 "GHG emissions" and AEI 26 "Soil quality" and as background information for most of the other AEI and in other agricultural statistics. Inquiries on data availability and the AEI questionnaire have shown that data on inorganic fertilizer consumption on a regional level, or even at national level, are only available annually in a few MS. The results from the pilot-studies on fertilizers show that data collection on fertilizers is complex and resource-consuming. Eurostat launched the DireDate project in 2009 with the objective to identify not only the data that should be collected at farm level for AEI (including fertilizer consumption), but also to give recommendations for long term data collection systems. The results from this project are expected in March 2011 and will be discussed in the Working Group on AEI at the end of March In the short and even medium term official data from national authorities are not expected to become available as MS will need to set up a new data collection etc. As data on fertilizer consumption are vital for many of the AEI indicators, there is a need to look at alternative data sources. 2. Alternative data sources FADN: The possibilities of incorporating variables on farm-level fertiliser consumption into the FADN surveys are being explored in the context of the ongoing upgrading of the FADN. However the FADN may not be representative as small farms and e.g. greenhouse farming are not included. Fertilizers Europe: Fertilizers Europe (formerly European Fertilizer Manufacturers Association, EFMA) has made estimations on inorganic fertilizers consumption per crop and per country with a crop based/ expert based approach: - A 10 years European scenario is built taking into account long term prospects of USDA, FAPRI, OECD, and EU Commission, discussions with DG AGRI experts and internal Fertilizers Europe expertise. - Based on the European scenario, a national scenario is carried out by each forecaster. Fertilizers Europe has specialist forecasters in almost every MS. - The national forecast is then assessed on a crop by crop and nutrient by nutrient basis. - Every year in each country the evaluation of nutrient consumption per crop is crosschecked with actual sales for year n, n-1 and n-2. The time series data of Fertilizers Europe have been used by IIASA from 2008 in the European Nitrogen Assessment and the UN Task Force on Reactive Nitrogen. 3. Proposal For compiling and analysing AEI in order to update the fact sheets and draft the progress report on AEI, Eurostat proposes, as a temporary solution for providing harmonised

3 estimations on fertiliser use in agriculture until data become available from the future statistical system, to use: - MS data on the consumption of inorganic fertilizers in agriculture, if available. MS that collect data on the consumption of inorganic fertilizers in agriculture are kindly asked to use these data in the nutrient balances and to supply these data through the Eurostat-OECD Joint Questionnaire on AEI for the Indicator ''Mineral fertilizer consumption''. - Fertilizers Europe time series data on inorganic fertilizer consumption data. For MS of which data on inorganic fertilizers is not available, Eurostat proposes data of Fertilizers Europe to be used to estimate the inorganic fertilizer consumption by agriculture. 4. Dissemination Data on inorganic fertilizer consumption received from MS and Fertilizers Europe will be disseminated in Eurostat public online database in two separate tables. The data publicly available are also likely to be included in official publications of Eurostat such as the Pocketbook on Agricultural statistics, Statistics in Focus (SiF), Statistical books, etc. Data will also be used to compile the fact sheets and the progress report on AEI. 5. International coordination Eurostat will discuss the data on inorganic fertiliser consumption used for the development of AEI development with the OECD and FAO to achieve harmonisation and coordination of data. 6. Questions to members of the WG a. Do countries agree with proposal to use data of Fertiliser Europe? 3

4 Annex: Comparison EFMA data vs MS data The following figures show the comparison between data on inorganic fertiliser consumption by agriculture from Fertilizers Europe and data received from MS (DE, PL, RO, SI, FI, SE, CH, UK, HU, NO). There are quite some significant differences between the estimates of Fertilizers Europe and the estimates of MS. Figure 1 shows these differences for N inorganic fertilizer consumption (expressed as a percentage of the MS estimates). After 2000 the differences are smaller (around 10% for most MS). Figure 1 consumption. Difference Fertilizers Europe and MS estimates of N inorganic fertilizer Difference between Fertilizers Europe estimates and MS estimates as a percentage of MS estimates (N fertilizer consumption) 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% -5% -10% -15% -20% -25% -30% -35% -40% DE PL RO SI FI SE CH UK HU NO For P the difference between Fertilizers Europe's and MS's estimates after 2000 are still quite large. Partially this could be due to the fact that stocks are not taken into account in the Fertilizers Europe's estimates, which may be significant for P fertilizers as they are often not applied on an annual basis, another reason could be that the Fertilizers Europe estimates only concern manufactured mineral P fertilizers. Figure 2 consumption. Difference Fertilizers Europe and MS estimates of P inorganic fertilizer 4

5 Difference between Fertilizers Europe estimates and MS estimates as a percentage of MS estimates (P fertilizer consumption) 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% -10% -20% -30% -40% -50% -60% -70% -80% DE PL RO SI FI SE CH UK HU NO 5