Legal and Technical Office for Information and Communication (Service Juridique et Technique de l Information et de la Communication: SJTIC)

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1 Legal and Technical Office for Information and Communication (Service Juridique et Technique de l Information et de la Communication: SJTIC) The SJTIC was established by a decree of September 29, 1956, as the successor of the Service Juridique et Technique de la Presse, set up in The SJTIC s structure was modified by decree of April 19, 1995, and its name changed to Service Juridique et Technique de l Information et de la Communication. SJTIC is placed under the authority of the Prime Minister and, for management purposes, it is regarded as a unit of the government s general secretariat. By tradition, SJTIC is placed at the disposal of the minister in charge of communication. SJTIC prepares government legislation, regulations, and decisions on the press and audiovisual communication. It plays a role in defining and implementing government policy in regard to the media and communication services. It carries out statistical and forward-looking studies and surveys. SJTIC press-related activities include: drafting the regulations that apply to press activities and the participating professions and industries; preparing and implementing government decisions in the area of administrative oversight; monitoring the activities of press-industry organizations operating under special statuses; and tracking the changes in press media. As regards audiovisual communication (including radio), SJTIC drafts the relevant bills and decrees, and prepares and carries out government decisions in the area of administrative, financial, and technical oversight of public-sector audiovisual communication entities. Concerning the development of the communication industry, SJTIC takes part in defining and implementing government policy on France s audiovisual activities abroad and on the economic status of communication services; it helps define government policy on the modernization of technologies, media, and networks used by communication services. SJTIC comprises a general secretariat and three subdirectorates: Press and Information; Audiovisual Communication; and Communication-Services Development. There is also a Mission for Statistical Observation, Analysis, and Documentation on the Media. The Mission comprises: a Statistical Department; an Analysis Department, which carries out the study program defined by the subdirectorates; the studies cover sociological, economic, legal, technical, and other issues; a Reference Center that collects information and research studies on the communication industry. 2

2 The Mission for Statistical Observation, Analysis, and Documentation on the Media Public statistics on the French media Official statistics on the French press and audiovisual media are compiled by the Legal and Technical Office for Information and Communication (Service Juridique et Technique de l Information et de la Communication: SJTIC). This unit forms part of the Prime Minister s office and is placed at the disposal of the minister in charge of communication.the SJTIC s statistical work was long confined to a survey of the press. In the early 1990s, its activities were substantially expanded under the leadership of Bernard Gentil: the collection of data on the press has been stepped up; in 1991, a statistical program on audiovisual media was launched with the National Audiovisual Institute (Institut National de l Audiovisuel: INA) and in association with the National Center for Cinema (Centre National de la Cinématographie: CNC); in 1995, with INSEE support, a Statistical Observatory on the Advertising Industry was established. Nineteen-ninety-five also saw the birth of the Mission for Statistical Observation, Analysis, and Documentation on the Media (Mission d Observation Statistique, d Étude et de Documentation sur les Médias). The Mission reports to the head of SJTIC and brings together all the information resources available to SJTIC. 1 The Mission has the status of a ministerial statistical agency. It works in close cooperation with the INSEE Service Industries Department, notably in conducting annual enterprise surveys of the audiovisual and advertising industries. Despite their close links, the press, the audiovisual media, and the advertising industry operate as distinct economic sectors. One can even regard radio as a separate subdivision of the audiovisual industry. As the SJTIC s statistical arm, the Mission studies all four categories using an identical approach and within a single program, which involves the following tasks: census and assessment of all existing statistical sources; publication of key figures; incorporation of data into an information system; preparation of economic and financial indicators on enterprises and products; compilation of economic accounts. 1. Government decrees of June 17, 1999, amending the decrees of April 19, 1995, on the organization of SJTIC into subdirectorates and offices. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

3 Bernard Gentil and Jean-Marie Nivlet The press The French press has a very long history, dating back to the founding of La Gazette by Théophraste Renaudot in France invented the first popular daily in the late nineteenth century: Le Parisien, sold for pennies, saw its print run soar from 300,000 copies in 1889 to one million in 1900 and over two million in World War I saw the birth of the first local dailies. Indeed, the dailies represented the most influential category of the press. The phenomenon peaked in 1946, with more than 200 newspapers and an average daily run of more than 15 million copies. From dailies to magazines General and political daily newspapers are still widely regarded as the most typical products of the press. The decline of the dailies is a long-term phenomenon that began in the late 1960s. A few years later came the news magazines, which enjoyed buoyant growth until the mid-1970s. The 1960s also witnessed the proliferation of specialized magazines on sports, leisure pursuits, and countless other topics. The abundance and diversity of this category of publications is a distinctive feature of the French press that endures to this day. In 1997, the French daily press comprised 91 papers, of which 75 general and political newspapers and 16 specialized titles, for a combined average daily run of nearly 10 million copies. Revenues from magazine sales exceed those of the dailies by almost 70%. sale of advertising space the second being totally dependent on the first. The result is a distinctive economic logic whereby a paper s financial position weakens as soon as its advertising revenues exceed its sales revenues. Far from being strictly economic and cultural, however, the role of the press has always been perceived as essential to the functioning of democracy. Throughout history, political, financial, and religious pressure groups have sought to control the press. Under the French Revolution, the authorities introduced special measures including a system of direct and indirect State subsidies to protect the press and foster its growth. These legislative arrangements were overhauled at the end of World War II as part of a comprehensive reappraisal of the role of the press and its ethical code. The system has been steadily expanded until recent years. Dailies vs. magazines The daily press and the magazine press are two completely different industries. The daily press is a heavy industry: with its high-volume printing plants and complex production process, it designs, lays out, and manufactures a new product every day, reproduced in thousands of copies and delivered to 36,000 points of sale before 8 A.M. The magazine press, by comparison, is a light industry, routinely subcontracting the printing process and often subcontracting a part of the editorial work. There is also a special, intermediate category of non-daily newspapers produced by means of the same process as the dailies. The prospects of the two presses are different as well. In the magazine press, many new titles are born every year. Insofar as international comparisons provide a reliable gauge, France actually seems to be A distinct activity The press is an economic activity that displays a number of original features. To begin with, it lives off two markets: its readership and the Newsdealer in the 1960s (photo courtesy of Le Parisien Libéré) 4

4 Public statistics on the French media the world leader in the magazine press. The outlook for the dailies is more uncertain: some titles are in a fragile financial position (the aggregate gross operating surplus of French national dailies is negative), profitability is slender, readership growth is sluggish or null, and the advertising market is volatile. Of course these generalizations need to be qualified. Most specialized dailies are in better health than the general and political newspapers; within the latter category, the local papers are more resilient than the national ones. But France, which gave birth to the first popular daily, no longer holds a global or even European leadership in the daily press quite to the contrary. 2 For example, the French buy two and a half times fewer dailies per capita than the British, and one-half as many as the Germans and Dutch. This is despite the steady increase in public subsidies to the dailies until recent years including the establishment of a support fund for general and political dailies with low advertising resources. In sum, the press is divided into two sectors, both of which receive financial aid from the State but are also increasingly dependent on industrial and financial conglomerates. One sector the magazine press is still expanding; the other the daily press is in a precarious state. It is thus easy to understand why a statistical monitoring of the press is both necessary and useful for public authorities, citizens, and the industry itself. The two most topical issues are (1) the change in the ratio of 2. In Japan, some newspapers have a daily print run of more than 10 million. 3. This includes the daily press, the magazine press, and controlled-circulation advertising magazines. The latter category is actually at the extreme borderline of what can be defined as press. It is a highly distinctive economic activity, producing minimal value added. In revenue terms, however, it carries a fairly substantial weight, generating almost 7% of total revenues of the publishers press. 4. The surveys were introduced in 1982 to replace the original survey that dated from SJTIC Classification of newspapers and periodicals National general and political news publications National general and political dailies National general and political news publications other than dailies and magazines General and political news magazines Illustrated general and political news magazines Local general and political news Local general and political dailies (including Sunday papers) Local general and political news publications other than dailies and Sunday papers Local magazines Bulletins of legal and business notices Special-interest consumer magazines Paid advertisement magazines Cultural, scientific, and technical Home, decorating, and gardening Economics Women s Juvenile and comic books Trade and technical magazine Farming Construction and civil engineering Capital-goods industries Medical Intermediate-goods industries Financial and stock market Agribusiness advertising revenues to total revenues, and (2) the effect of public subsidies, measured through the statistics on operating costs. The statistical system for tracking the press The sector tracked consists of what is referred to as the publishers press (presse d éditeur).3 We will not deal here with the publications of community organizations and government bodies, private newsletters, or the corporate press. In terms of print runs and number of titles, the publishers press is not the largest category. In economic terms, however, it is the category that matters: it has commercial revenues, it generally uses the major distribution networks (such as Nouvelles Messageries de la Presse Leisure Sports Radio and TV Gossip and tabloid Family and society Wholesale/retail trade Market services Non-market services Insurance Transportation and telecommunications Consumer-goods industries Real-estate rental and leasing Controlled-circulation advertisement magazines: Nonpaid publications without editorial content, consisting exclusively of classified and display advertisements. Parisienne and Messageries Lyonnaises de Presse), and most of its enterprises are affiliated with a press organization. Admittedly, the non-publishers press comprises a large number of titles about 40,000, not counting in-house newsletters produced by business firms, government agencies, and private non-profit organizations. But its economic weight is small. Statistical surveys on the press There are two annual surveys of press publishers in France: a detailed survey covering all of the 3,000-odd publishers press titles, and a quick survey covering about 600 titles, or 100% of the dailies and almost 80% of the other press categories (in revenue terms).4 Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

5 Bernard Gentil and Jean-Marie Nivlet The data gathered are tabulated according to SJTIC s custom-designed classification, whose main criteria are (1) content and (2) geographic distribution level.5 At its most aggregated level, the classification comprises five broad categories of press titles: (1) national general and political newspapers; (2) local general and political newspapers; (3) special-interest consumer magazines; (4) trade and technical magazines; (5) nonpaid magazines consisting of display and classified advertisements. At the most detailed level, the classification contains almost 100 headings. The quick survey covers the following areas: revenues of press firms from their publishing business, including newsstand sales, subscriptions, revenues from display advertising and classified ads; print runs; circulation.6 The results for year n are published in May of year n+1 in the four-page bulletin Info-Médias. The detailed survey looks at each publishing company as a whole, but from selected angles only, as well as at each of its titles: revenues, print run, and circulation, paper consumption, operating costs, and payroll. The survey is used to update the list of publishers press titles (start-ups, takeovers, and closures); it provides information on the structure of the industry by publication category; and it addresses highly topical issues such as editorial costs and distribution costs. The results for year n are published at the start of year n+2 in Tableaux Statistiques de la Presse 5. The industry itself generally uses a classification based on the type of production activity, which distinguishes between the daily press, the magazine press, the specialized trade and technical press, and the nonpaid (controlled-circulation) press. 6. The quick-survey form was simplified in 1997 (i.e., for the survey covering 1996), in order to ease the paperwork burden on respondent firms and obtain timelier responses. KEY STATISTICS OF THE PUBLISHERS PRESS, 1996 Total Revenues in FRF billion of which: newsstand sales and subscriptions display-advertising revenues classified-advertising revenues Value added approx. 0.5 % of GDP Household consumption press products, FRF billion share of total consumption, % Dailies Revenues in FRF billion of which: newsstand sales and subscriptions display-advertising revenues classified-advertising revenues Average daily print run, millions of copies Frequency of dailies readership in France every day or nearly every day % often % less often % never or nearly never % Sources: Press Survey, SJTIC, 1996 Survey of household living conditions, INSEE, DIRECT AND INDIRECT PRESS SUBSIDIES DATA - FRF MILLION (funding available after mid-year supplementary budget) Direct subsidies: of which: relief on expenses incurred by newspapers (phone and fax charges) refunds to National Railroads (SNCF) for discounts to members of the press support fund for international expansion of French press support fund for national general and political news publications with low advertising revenues support fund for local general and political news publications with low advertising revenues... 7 support fund for distribution of regional weeklies support for social cost of restructuring of Paris press subsidies for deliveries subscriptions to Agence France Presse Indirect subsidies: ,732 of which: shortfall in Postal Service revenues and contribution from central-government budget.. 5,493 shortfall in Treasury revenues due to tax relief and special tax status for press firms , Direct and indirect subsidies were initially restricted to general and political dailies. Most of these subsidies particularly for postage, the largest category are now granted to all publishers press titles that meet a specific set of criteria. The most decisive criterion is advertising space. If the space exceeds a certain limit, which varies for each category of publication, the subsidy is not granted. The body responsible for ruling on eligibility is called the Joint Commission for the Press and Press Agencies (Commission Paritaire de la Presse et des Agences de Presse: CPPAP), for which SJTIC serves as secretariat. The controlled-circulation press is obviously ineligible for subsidies, as are some special-interest magazines. Other categories such as publications by community, non-profit, and political groups also receive substantial subsidies. 2. Lower value added tax (VAT) rate, special tax status for allocations to provisions (article 39 bis), and exemption from the local business tax assessed on sales (taxe professionnelle). 6

6 Public statistics on the French media NAF Equivalence table between French classification of economic activities (Nomenclature des Activités Française: NAF) and SJTIC classification SJTIC 22.1C - Publication of newspapers National general and political dailies Category also includes publication of controlled-circulation newspapers Local general and political dailies Special-interest consumer dailies Trade and technical dailies Controlled-circulation publications The exact equivalents are not easy to establish. Some trade and technical dailies probably do not fit under category 22.1C; conversely, some weeklies should be classified with dailies. In any event, the SJTIC classification is a list of products rather than of economic activities. 22.1E Publication of magazines and periodicals All press categories not listed above along with data from other sources, notably the figures for household consumption of press products and State subsidies.7 Economic and financial analysis of the industry For many years, statisticians concentrated on publications rather than firms. As a result, until recently, 7. A retrospective was published under the title Dix Ans de Statistique Presse (Ten Years of Press Statistics). only the barest information was available on the economic and financial position of the publishing firms. In particular, there were no data on their value added, gross operating surplus, capital spending, net borrowing/lending, equity, long-term capital, and debt. These gaps were filled through a joint analysis of three sources: the annual enterprise survey by SESSI (the industrial statistics office of the Industry Ministry), the records of the Bank of France central balance-sheet data office, and the SJTIC statistical data base. Results for the period were published in six brochures in the series Tableaux Financiers de la Presse: entire press industry, national dailies, national general and political news magazines, local general and political news magazines, special-interest consumer magazines, and trade and technical magazines. Eventually, this project should lead to the publication of a yearbook giving a full economic and financial overview of the press a summary eagerly awaited by the industry. Photo DREIF/Gauthier Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

7 Bernard Gentil and Jean-Marie Nivlet Audiovisual media In historical order, the audiovisual media include motion pictures, radio, television, and video. The first public screening of the Lumière brothers cinématographe was in 1895; the first public radio broadcast in France took place in Television was in its infancy in 1950, with 162 hours of annual programming. Video may still be regarded as a newcomer; its growth has been followed by the even more recent arrival of multimedia products. At its birth, French television was placed under the same government supervisory authority as radio, the postal service, telegraphs, and telephones-later referred to as Posts-Telecommunications- Broadcasting. Radio and television were subsequently administered together for many years by a public agency: initially Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (RTF), then Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF), which was split up in Even today, the State-run radio and television networks continue to share the proceeds of the annual license fee levied on TV sets (redevance audiovisuelle). Despite this common administrative history, radio and television are two very distinct economic activities. Radio is intrinsically linked to the sound-recording industry (vinyl records, CDs, and audio cassettes). Television belongs to the realm of the moving-picture media, along with cinema and video. In this section, we will therefore be discussing the audiovisual industry in the narrow sense: motion pictures (cinema), television, and video. It includes producers of television programs and motion pictures, the production of commissioned films (advertising and corporate), distributors, TV broadcasters, movie-theater operators, videocassette publishers, and all the associated supporting industries. It excludes radio, examined in a separate section. A still modest but fast-growing recreational expenditure In 1997, French households spent an average of FRF962 on television (license fee and subscriptions to pay-tv channels), FRF219 on movie-theater admissions, and FRF360 on video purchases and rentals making a total of FRF1,541 (not counting appliances). This is hardly an extravagant outlay: it represents less than one-hundredth of total household expenditures, barely more than one-tenth of expenditures on recreational services, and slightly less than the expenditure on newspapers. But there has been a sixfold increase since 1980; indeed, audiovisual products and services were the fastest-growing consumption item in the period The TV revolution The French television industry has experienced significant growth and change in recent years. In 1980, there were three channels, all of them State-run (TF1, Antenne 2, and FR3); by 1995, there were 45 channels, 40 of them private;8 in 1997, with the advent of digital broadcasting, the number topped 100. This revolution was sparked by the Law of July 29, 1982, which abolished the State monopoly on television: article 1 asserted the principle of the freedom of audiovisual communication. The act opened terrestrial-broadcast television services to concessionary management, allowed private ownership of channels, and established the Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle, France s first audiovisual regulatory authority. The Law of September 30, 1986, replaced the 1982 act. First, it reasserted the principle of the freedom of audiovisual communication and established authorization procedures for private-sector services. Second, it replaced the Haute Autorité by the Commission Nationale de la Communication et des Libertés (CNCL) succeeded by the Conseil Supérieur de l Audiovisuel (CSA) in Third, it spelled out Drawing by Mireille Brunet (INSEE Head Office) 8. The five public channels are France 2, France 3, La Cinquième, Arte, and RFO (Radiotélévision Française d Outre-Mer). 8

8 Public statistics on the French media KEY FIGURES FOR THE AUDIOVISUAL INDUSTRY (EXCLUDING RADIO) Total revenues (FRF billion) of which: National terrestrial-broadcast channels Specialty TV Motion-picture production TV program production Production on order Movie-theater operation Video publishing Supporting industries Distributors Value added (FRF billion), equal to 0.5% of GDP Permanent workforce* ,300 of which: Television ,201 Motion-picture production ,386 TV program production ,700 Movie-theater operation ,185 Supporting industries ,201 Distributors ,134 Source: data from 1995 Annual Enterprise Survey of the service industries, processed by SJTIC and CNC Number of movie-theater tickets (million) Time spent watching television, per person (average daily duration in minutes, for persons aged 4+) all channels Market share of terrestrial-broadcast channels, % (annual average) TF France France M Canal Plus La Cinquième Arte Other channels (cable and satellite) Number of subscribers to Canal Plus (year-end 1996), million Number of cable subscribers (year-end 1996): Number of connected dwellings, million Number of subscriptions to basic service, million Number of subscribers to Canal Satellite (year-end 1996) ,000 Number of films produced in France of which: French-originated films Source: 1996 data from Indicateurs statistiques de l audiovisuel *Does not include intermittent workers, who make up approximately one-third of the total. The survey on intermittent workers in the entertainment industry carried out by the Analysis and Forecasting Department of the Ministry of Culture and Communication will provide fuller and more reliable information on this category. arrangements for the privatization of TF1. Today, French television derives about half of its funding from businesses through advertising revenues, and the other half from viewers license fees and subscriptions. Three kinds of television live side by side: public TV, free TV, and pay TV. Each has a different relationship with its viewers. Public TV is an administered service in the sense that the viewer theoretically has little influence on the program offerings. Free TV, which lives exclusively on advertising, is dependent on ratings and thus, indirectly, on viewer preferences. Pay TV, by contrast, depends directly on its viewers, since they unsubscribe if they do not like what they see. The distinction between administered TV and free TV is, however, a simplification. In reality, the public channels mainly those with the highest advertising content9 depend on ratings as well. And, in practice, all the general audience channels have to tailor the bulk of their programs to mass tastes. Meanwhile, thanks to cable and satellite, the range of specialty TV channels is constantly expanding. The prospect of digital terrestrial broadcasting has stimulated plans for regional and community channels. While the TV revolution was under way, the audience increased to record highs, and the small screen won an irreversible victory over movie theaters. In 1997, French people aged 4 and up spent an average 1,002 hours watching television 2.75 hours a day of which 85 hours watching films (over 1,000 films were broadcast that year). In that same year, however, they went to the movies only two or three times.10 Production and producers In the audiovisual industry, the term production designates all the stages involved in producing a film or television program (fiction, documentary, news, entertainment, games, etc.). The term producer denotes the legal entity or person that assembles all the artistic, supporting, and financial resources needed to produce an audiovisual work. Production is the core activity of the audiovisual industry. Broadcast television, movie theaters, and video publishers disseminate the films and programs produced by producers and marketed by distributors. The role of television channels is to 9. Overall, advertising generates one-third of public TV revenues; in other words, the license fee accounts for only two-thirds. 10. These statistics concern general audience terrestrial-broadcast channels only. Including Canal Plus (the pay-tv channel), cable, and satellite, the daily viewing time per person comes to three hours. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

9 Bernard Gentil and Jean-Marie Nivlet MAIN FLOWS IN THE AUDIOVISUAL INDUSTRY Coproduction shares SUPPORTING INDUSTRIES WORKS OF ART, LITERARY WORKS Purchases of technical services STATE Financial support Financial support TV licence fee Financial support Rights purchases Box-office receipts Film rentals Film and program rights purchases Via distributors Direct Tax on gross sales PRODUCERS of motion pictures of stock TV programs of flow TV programs of programs to order DISTRIBUTORS of motion pictures and programs TV- program coprodiction shares Tax on movietheater tickets Movie-theater ticket purchases HOUSEHOLDS Exports, coproduction contributions from abroad MOVIE THEATERS Videocassette purchases REST OF THE WORLD Canal Plus subscriptions VIDEO PUBLISHERS Cable and satellite subscriptions Imports, coproduction contributions to abroad TV CHANNELS Purchases of advertising space Own-account production Fee to TV stations ADVERTISING INDUSTRY agencies, media brokers, etc... BUSINESS, GOVERNMENT SATELLITE AND CABLE OPERATOR Purchases of commercials films Pur chases of promotional Main financing flows into audiovisual industry Other flows internal to industry or out of industry Audiovisual agents Agents outside audiovisual industry The rest of the world has relations with all agents: the flowchart has been simplified 10

10 Public statistics on the French media schedule the films and programs they purchase: television broadcasting is therefore a low-value-added activity. The image of the artisan producer is not obsolete. The French production business is fragmented into more than a thousand small firms. At the same time, its market is increasingly confined to television and is thus turning into something of a monopsony. Television has become the largest market in terms of motion-picture production revenues, ahead of movie theaters and video: video is a new and fast-growing segment, but for the moment it generates few royalty earnings. TV-program production has boomed, and its revenues are now twice those of motion-picture production. In sum, French production has become heavily dependent on TV. On the other hand, it has been helped in international competition since the first decrees of early 1990 on broadcasting and production quotas. Statistical monitoring of the audiovisual industry Until recently, the statistical coverage of the audiovisual industry was highly paradoxical. Whatever statistics did exist were largely a by-product of the administrative activities of the CNC and Conseil Supérieur de l Audiovisuel (CSA) with all the attendant imperfections or they were produced to meet the insistent demands of advertisers. Admittedly, many data series were compiled and disseminated, some of them with a great degree of precision. Movie-theater admission figures were tabulated for each individual film with unit accuracy, the daily TV viewing time (DVT) per person was estimated to within one minute, and so on. But in other crucial areas the figures were either imprecise or totally lacking. For instance, the cost of films was measured only through statistics on TF1 headquarters in Boulogne, outside Paris (photo DREIF/Gobry) project estimates, and the value of so-called flow production was not measured.11 The value of audiovisual production was thus quite simply a mystery and that is only one example. But the arsenal of regulations applied to the audiovisual industry shows just how many issues are raised by the industry s growth. The implementation of procedures for a statistical monitoring of its economic and financial activity had become an urgent necessity. The economic accounts of the audiovisual industry The framework of the audiovisual-industry economic accounts was initially defined by a working party of industry representatives, government officials, and experts. A second stage involved a census of existing statistical sources, in order to determine the information already available and the information missing. INSEE s annual enterprise survey (Enquête Annuelle d Entreprise: EAE) in the service industries (audiovisual sector) was adopted as the main source for the accounts, with effect from A supplementary survey was added in 1992 (survey covering financial 1991); it was carried out on a sub-sample of the largest audiovisual firms in revenue terms.12 This supplementary survey, managed in partnership with the CNC and with INSEE support, was repeated until 1996 (for financial 1995). In 1997, it was incorporated into INSEE s new fourth-generation system of annual enterprise surveys (EAE4G). Some major statistical problems soon emerged during the account quantification process. The audiovisual industry is a very complex object of study owing to the multiplicity of financial flows between its sub-industries. While the physical flows are easy to measure, the monetary flows are not, because they take many forms including: counterparts of physical flows; loans and advances (advance purchases by television channels, guaranteed minimum commissions to distributors, etc.); co-producer shares; and so on. The question form is designed to identify all these flows, without placing too heavy a response burden on the firms surveyed. The main obstacle was the diversity of accounting methods, which occasionally entailed wide discrepancies in the monetary amounts given in response to 11. Flow production owes its name to the fact that its value ceases after the program is aired: the term applies to variety shows, games, etc. By contrast, stock production retains its value even after an initial broadcast, which is why the producer books it as an intangible fixed asset. The term is used for motion pictures, TV films, documentaries, etc. 12. The question form for the supplementary survey explores selected headings of the general survey in great detail, so as to obtain the fullest possible picture of financial flows generated by the respondent firms. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

11 Bernard Gentil and Jean-Marie Nivlet some key questions.13 For example, a TV channel will book its program purchases as intangible fixed assets, and program broadcasts will be recorded as provisions for depreciation. Another channel may, instead, record all its program purchases as current expenses, and its program broadcasts as a drawdown of rights inventories. Likewise, TV-program producers were found to use six different accounting methods. The figures reported by firms therefore often need to be restated to comply with the economic-account guidelines. All the problems encountered were gradually solved, and the first version of the audiovisual-industry accounts for the base period have recently been published.14 The next step is to develop a method for updating these basic series in order to compile preliminary year-n accounts for the audiovisual industry in year n+1. While compiling the accounts, the Mission developed a harmonized data base containing the information gathered from firms. The base, now regularly updated, provides a source for summary publications such as Les entreprises de l audiovisuel.15 In 1994, the Mission launched a yearbook of statistical indicators, Indicateurs statistiques de l audiovisuel, whose fifth edition appeared in This problem led the main organization of TV-program producers, Union Nationale des Producteurs Audiovisuels (USPA), to draft an industry chart of accounts with SJTIC and CNC support. The chart is being submitted for official approval to the National Council on Accounting (Conseil National de la Comptabilité, not to be confused with the Centre National de la Cinématographie: in this article, CNC refers to the latter only). 14. Le compte économique de l audiovisuel - cinéma, télévision, vidéo - La base , Paris: SJTIC-CNC-INA, July Prepared jointly with CNC and published in June 1997 and June Prepared jointly with CNC, CSA, and INA. Classification of activities and products used by SJTIC and CNC for the analysis of data from the Annual Enterprise Survey (audiovisual industry) and for the satellite account of the audiovisual industry in the national accounts ACTIVITIES PRODUCTS NAF equivalent 01 - Supporting industries Technical services 92.1D - Technical services for motion pictures and television 02 - Motion-picture producers Films 1 Film rights 03 - Producers of TV programs TV programs 2 TV program rights 04 - Producers of films to order Corporate films Commercials 05 - Distributors Film and program distribution services 92.1C - Production of filmfor the motion-picture industry 92.1C - Production of film for television C - Production of programs for television B - Production of corporate films and commissioned films 92.1F - Distribution of motion pictures 06 - TV broadcasters TV channels Specialty TV channels Cable operators TV broadcasting services 92.2C - Broadcasting of TV programs Movie-theater operators Film-screening services 92.1J - Motion-picture screening 08 - Video publishers/distributors Videocassettes for sale Videocassettes for rental 92.1G - Video publishing and distribution 1. A distinction is made between (1) the film itself (what professionals call the negative ), whose value is booked as a fixed asset, and (2) the rights to the film for a determined number of screenings, period of time, or geographic area. The negative may be sold, but typically it is the rights that are sold, and the producer retains ownership of the negative. 2. See note 1. Only some TV programs are booked as fixed assets, generating revenues from rights sales. 3. This category notably includes the production of series, fiction, etc. for TV broadcasting, irrespective of length. 4. This category differs from the one above. It notably includes live and recorded entertainment, educational, and news programs. In the three-digit headings, it is included in television activities, whereas the SJTIC classification includes it in production. 5. This category includes specialty TV, but not the broadcasting of TV programs via cable and satellite. However, some cable operators engage in both activities. 12

12 Public statistics on the French media Radio FIP radio station, Maison de la Radio, Paris (photo DREIF/Gobry) between local commercial radio stations (including franchised and non-franchised stations, network stations and independent stations) and local non-profit stations. The latter receive State subsidies (totaling about FRF100 million in 1996) via the SJTIC-managed Radio Broadcasting Support Fund (Fonds de Soutien à l Expression Radiophonique: FSER). promotes the recording industry and provides it with a portion of its revenues in the form of broadcasting rights. The rights are collected through collective rights-management organizations, of which the best-known is Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Éditeurs de Musique (SACEM) for music composers and publishers founded in While older than TV, radio is in economic terms its baby sister: radio sales and advertising revenues are one-fourth those of TV, and State-run stations receive only one-fourth of the proceeds of the license fee (redevance). In terms of audience, the gap is narrower. Radio is listened to on average 190 minutes a day, comparable to the three hours of TV viewing. The radio audience is younger than that of TV: 40% of listeners are aged 15-34, as against 26% of TV viewers. Hundreds of radio stations The Law of July 29, 1982, lifted many of the State controls on French radio as it did with television. The opening of a radio station does remain subject, however, to some conditions. Today, licenses are issued by the CSA, which in 1997 reported the following statistics: three State-run networks (Radio France, Radio France International, and Radiotélévision Française d Outre-Mer); and more than 1,200 different operators, including three national general-audience stations (Europe 1, RMC, and RTL) and twelve national theme stations (Beur FM, BFM, Radio Classique, Europe 2, Fun Radio, Montmartre FM, Nostalgie, NRJ, Radio Orient, RFM, RTL2, and Skyrock). The remaining 1,200 are evenly divided Radio, recorded music, and musical creation Radio s basic ties are to the recording industry, which produces vinyl discs, CDs, and audio cassette tapes. The recording industry supplies radio with program material. Radio A medium for times of crisis One of the original features of radio is that its advertising revenues grow when the total advertising market slumps. Conversely, they tend to stall or decline when the market picks up. As a result, radio is often KEY FIGURES FOR THE RADIO INDUSTRY Total revenues (FRF billion) of which: Receipts from TV/radio license fee Advertising Other sources Workforce ,842 of whom: permanent ,832 Source: data from 1995 Annual Enterprise Survey of the service industries, processed by SJTIC and CNC Daily listening Daily listening time 2 per listener time 2 per person (minutes) (minutes) Market share (%) All radio stations General-public national stations ,9 Theme music stations ,3 Other theme stations ,5 Local stations ,6 Other stations ,7 Source: Médiamétrie, survey of persons aged 15+, November-December Sales of programs, derivative rights; etc. 2. The listening time per listener is the average time spent listening to the radio by people who have listened at least once during the day, even for only one minute. The listening time per person is the average time spent listening to the radio by all survey respondents, including those who have not listened at all. 3. Foreign stations, Radio France International, and unidentified stations. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

13 Bernard Gentil and Jean-Marie Nivlet Classification of activities and products used by SJTIC for the radio industry ACTIVITIES PRODUCTS NAF equivalent 01 - Supporting industries Technical services 02 - Radio producers Radio programs Program rights 92.2A - Radio activities 03 - Producers of sound recordings Recording of sound recordings 22.3A - Reproduction of sound recordings 04 - Radio broadcasters State-run radio stations General-public commercial radio stations National commercial theme radio stations Affiliated, subscribing, or franchised local commercial radio stations Independent local commercial radio stations Local community radio stations Radio broadcasting services 92.2A - Radio activities 05 - Publishers of sound recordings Sound recordings 22.1G - Publication of sound recordings The NAF is not very detailed. Heading 92.2A includes production and broadcasting of radio programs. The activity of sound-recording producer is not explicitly listed and seems to be classified under 22.3A, which, to judge from the wording, describes the technical aspect of reproduction instead. The activity of the supporting industries must be minor, and is presumably amalgamated with radio activities or audiovisual supporting industries. viewed as the medium for times of crisis. In economic downswings, many advertisers turn to radio because it is cheaper and quicker to use than the other media: low-budget campaigns can be launched in under 24 hours. Statistical production Most data on radio broadcasting come from the CSA (for the census of stations, their status, and type of programs), Médiamétrie (for audience ratings), and SECODIP (for advertising expenditures). SJTIC also contributes statistics in its capacity as manager of the Radio Broadcasting Support Fund (FSER).17 The information on the recording industry comes from the industry itself, and displays the qualities and defects inherent in this type of source: a fairly high level of detail, but incomplete coverage. The Mission also verifies and analyzes in the greatest possible detail the radio and media representation sectors of the Annual Enterprise Survey in the service industries. The main challenge here is that some leading firms in the industry the peripheral commercial radio stations18 lie partly or entirely outside the survey s scope of coverage. Estimates are therefore necessary. All of this information is published in Indicateurs statistiques de la radio,a summary compilation whose latest edition was released in September The information gathered in the course of support-fund management work has been analyzed and published. See C. Mohr, Les radios associatives, Info-Médias, no. 1, December So called because they were initially obliged when radio broadcasting was still a State monopoly in France to operate and broadcast from neighboring countries such as Luxembourg and Monte Carlo. 14

14 Public statistics on the French media Advertising Historically linked to the mass media and their financing, the advertising industry has evolved in step with the professionalization of corporate communication and the advent and spread of new technologies. Public statisticians and economists are being asked ever more frequently to assess these changes. The advertising market One way to gauge the advertising market is to look at advertisers expenditures, which reached FRF170 billion in Over 10% of the total came from industries such as perfumes and household cleaning products. Another aspect of the market is the major financial contribution of advertising to the communication media, which in the aggregate derive half their revenues from the sale of advertising space. Between the advertisers and the media stands the advertising industry itself: agencies and space brokers are grouped under heading 74.4 of the French classification of economic activities (Nomenclature d Activités Française: NAF). Advertising agencies create the messages and counsel advertisers on how to convey those messages most effectively. The media agencies (régies) formerly known as central purchasing offices have shifted their business in recent years from brokerage to consulting. The media agencies directly manage dedicated advertising media (such as billboards) or sell advertising space on behalf of the media, i.e., the press, TV, radio, and movie theaters. Many other industries are directly involved in external corporate communication. Printing firms and producers of advertising and corporate films contribute to the physical production of advertising messages. The postal service (La Poste), France Télécom, and their competitors are providing an essential stimulus to the growth of direct marketing. Service companies offer their know-how in public relations, sales promotion, and crisis management. Private research organizations measure the audience of the media and try to assess the effectiveness of campaigns on advertisers targets. More recently, Web-site designers have become involved in corporate image-building. The fast-growing segment of free Internet providers is actually financed by advertising in the broad sense. A mature industry Direct marketing and the other below-the-line (or non-media ) communication vehicles are stabilizing at about two-thirds of the French advertising market. As regards the media, the press still holds the lead: despite stagnant circulation and readership, it has unquestionably rebounded from its spell in the doldrums in the early 1990s. French TV enjoyed a spectacular boom in with the opening of private unscrambled channels and the privatization of TF1; today, its revenues have settled at the European average and seem to be growing at a more sedate pace. Billboards have kept a much bigger share of the advertising market in France than in most other industrial countries. Advertisers expenditures are now moving in step with the overall economic growth rate, and accelerate during investment recoveries. The market therefore seems to have reached a certain maturity, despite the intense competition and continuous flow of innovations. The Advertising Statistics Observatory The Sapin Act of 1993 sought to achieve greater transparency in the provision and billing of advertising and media-brokerage services. The commissions in charge of assessing its effects had considerable difficulty finding their way around the statistical sources available for the advertising market. The authors of the Champsaur/Brun-Buisson report, after consulting with the advertising-industry organizations, recommended the establishment of an observatory to gather statistics on advertising (Observatoire de la Publicité). Because of the need for confidentiality and objectivity, the recommendation was that the observatory should be a part of the public statistical system, with INSEE support to ensure its credibility. The unit was formed in 1995 at SJTIC, where a statistical office was already tracking the media. Since 1996, a committee of industry and government experts has been responsible for supervising the technical quality of the observatory s work. The committee is chaired by a senior INSEE official with the rank of inspecteur général. In 1997, a steering committee was added. It acts mainly as a consensus-building forum where industry representatives can discuss a range of issues, notably the measures planned by the authorities. Among the topics examined by the committee are: assessments of the implementation of the Sapin and Evin Acts;19 the tax introduced in 1998 on printed advertisement materials; the law on the audiovisual industry that reduces advertising time on State-owned 19. The Evin Act of 1992 severely restricted tobacco and alcohol advertising. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

15 Bernard Gentil and Jean-Marie Nivlet channels; and the plans to lift TV advertising bans for industries such as mass merchandising, publishing, and motion pictures. Progress report and plans for the future KEY FIGURES FOR THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY Total expenditures by advertisers in 1998: FRF173 billion Advertising in mass media (FRF billion) Expenditures by advertisers Cost of medium (net billings to advertisers) Television, cinema Radio Outdoor displays (billboards) Press (including classifieds) Trade shows and fairs Sponsoring Yearbooks and guides Controlled direct marketing Non-controlled direct marketing Multimedia Promotional events and point-of-sale advertising Public relations Phone marketing Design Source: 1998 preliminary accounts for advertising and external corporate communications industries Remuneration of creative and consulting service providers in 1998: FRF12.1 billion (estimated) Estimate of below-the-line advertising costs, 1998:.... FRF74 billion of which: direct marketing: FRF31 billion Payroll workers in Advertising industry (NAF heading 74.4) at 31 December, 1995: ,300 (Source: UNEDIC) Photo DREIF / Gauthier The first task of the statisticians assigned to the Advertising Statistics Observatory was to examine the existing sources in order to assess their value, reconcile them, and explain any divergences. The main tool for this examination was the in-depth analysis of the Annual Enterprise Survey in the service industries, SJTIC being one of INSEE s partners in conducting the survey. The examination led to the publication of a yearbook entitled Indicateurs statistiques de la publicité in 1997 and The next edition will contain economic accounts of the advertising and external corporate communication industries. The accounts are based on a selective compilation of the sources, backed up by additional investigations such as expert-opinion assessment of technical coefficients. Besides enhancing the economic accounts of the advertising industry, the Observatory will certainly place significant emphasis in its future work on short-term economic analysis and on constructing a price index for advertising services. The first published version of this article was written by Bernard Gentil, then head of the SJTIC statistical office; for the English translation, the text was revised by Mr. Gentil s successor, Jean-Marie Nivlet 16

16 Of figures and films Statistics at the French National Center for Cinema France s National Center for Cinema (Centre National de la Cinématographie: CNC) is a unique institution without equivalent in Europe. It has been largely responsible for the prosperity of the French film industry, at a time when many motion-picture industries in similar countries have been in decline notably because of competition from television networks. CNC was compiling statistics on film production, movie theaters, and attendance by the late 1940s, as a by-product of its administrative activities. The Center s statistical work has undergone substantial change and enlargement with the establishment of a Statistical Mission in the early 1990s, described by Gilles Rotman in this article. The Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC) is a public administrative body operating as a distinct and financially autonomous legal entity. Established by a law of October 25, 1946, it currently functions under the supervisory authority of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. CNC drafts and monitors the enforcement of regulations and legislation on the motion-picture industry, audiovisual production, and the video industry. It maintains the Public Register of the Motion-Picture and Audiovisual Industries.1 It manages French government subsidies to the motion-picture and audiovisual-program industries, as well as grants from the Ministry of Culture and Communication. Its functions, resources, and organization have expanded in step with the motion-picture and audiovisual industries. In 1999, CNC employed 454 people and the funds at its disposal totaled FRF2 billion. Its main missions are: (1) motion-picture certification and ratings, (2) box-office monitoring, and (3) regulation of distribution: Certification. Certification (agrément) is a prerequisite for obtaining financial support from the State for producers of motion-picture or audiovisual works. Certification is awarded by the Certification Commission. The procedure involves two steps: (1) investment certification if the project is found to comply with regulations, if the estimate is consistent with the screenplay, and if the producer has the necessary funding available; (2) supplementary certification upon completion of the project. Rating. French motion-picture films cannot be released and exported unless they receive a rating from the Rating Commission.2 Box-office monitoring. CNC is responsible for monitoring movie-theater box offices. The process involves the following administrative operations: transmitting gross box-office figures to the rights holders; accounting of the special tax levied on movie theaters by CNC; managing accounts for production, distribution, and release subsidies; collecting statutory contributions from the industry; and calculating and paying royalties due on behalf of the Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Éditeurs de Musique (SACEM), the French clearing-house for music composers and publishers rights. CNC keeps track of box-office data from statements that movie theaters are required to file at the end of each film week (in France, from Wednesday through the following Tuesday). The statements indicate the number of screenings, the number of paying spectators, and the gross box office, computed directly from the ticketing system.3 Regulation of distribution. The distribution of films by television and video companies is subject to a dual regulation concerning (1) the waiting period before distribution and (2) programming criteria, which include an annual quota of films, nationality quotas, and broadcast schedules. 1. The Register provides a medium for publicizing the legislation, agreements, and court rulings concerning motion pictures and audiovisual works (such as TV films and documentaries). 2. The ratings are: general audience; 12 years and older; 16 years and older; total ban (not enforced since 1980). 3. Movie theaters are required to give each spectator a receipt of payment for admission in the form of a regulation ticket provided by the CNC or printed out by the automated cash registers. Courrier des statistiques, English series no.5,

17 Gilles Rotman La Grande Vadrouille, by Gérard Oury (1966) With nearly 18 million tickets sold, this French-British film was the greatest box-office hit in France in the four decades until Titanic CNC support for the motion-picture and audiovisual industries CNC manages the financial resources allocated by the State to support the motion-picture and audiovisual-program industries, as well as the grants awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Communication. Financial support for the motion-picture industry goes mainly to film production and distribution, movie-theater construction and renovation, the supporting industries, and promotion. Support for the audiovisual industry goes to the production of programs for all television networks. In 1999, CNC distributed FRF2.3 billion in subsidies. The main recipient with approximately 56% is the motion-picture industry, ahead of TV program production (43%). Subsidies to the video industry, introduced in 1993, still represent only a small share of the total at FRF29 million. Support for the motion-picture industry CNC financial support for the motion-picture industry consists of automatic subsidies and selective subsidies. Automatic subsidies for films are calculated on their box office and their TV and video distribution. The aid is chiefly intended (1) to help producers reinvest in new film projects and (2) to help movie-theater operators finance improvements. Distributors also receive support, but to a lesser extent. Selective support for the production of feature films may take the form of specific grants, notably for screenplay enhancements and music scores. But the bulk of the aid consists of advances on box offices. The advances are designed to promote independent film-making as well as the production of first films and coproductions with central/east European countries. CNC also offers selective support for the production of short films. The main purpose of selective support to distributors is to facilitate the launch of films that meet defined quality criteria but involve financial risks for their market release. This support includes subsidies for making copies of films for screening in rural communities and small towns. Selective support to movie theaters covers the construction and renovation of facilities at regional level (outside Paris) and subsidies to Paris non-commercial (art et essai) and independent theaters. CNC also supports many entities for the most part, non-profit organizations that contribute to the development of the motion-picture industry. This includes: (1) subsidies to the Cinémathèque Française, the Bibliothèque de l Image-Filmothèque, the Institut Lumière in Lyon, the Cinémathèque in Toulouse, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; (2) grants to national and international promotional events, notably the Cannes Festival. The Center contributes to vocational training programs in the motion-picture industry and to awareness programs in schools and for young movie-goers. Since 1989, CNC has entered into agreements with local authorities to support movie-theater operation, production, and distribution, and to showcase France s cinema heritage. Since 1969, the Center has been engaged in protecting that heritage and making it available to a wider public. The Film Archive Department has launched a long-term program to preserve the nitrate-base films made between 1895 and

18 Of figures and films The Statistical Mission CNC s administrative assignments generate a substantial quantity of related statistics. For example, attendance data are compiled from the box-office statements filed by movie-theater operators. Similarly, the statistics on production volume and cost 4 are obtained by analyzing the applications for certification. The Statistical Mission is in charge of coordinating, improving, developing, and adding value to these statistical by-products in the form of publications but also in-house, via an Infocenter currently under development. The Mission conducts complementary studies and works in liaison with the SJTIC s own Statistical Mission.5 This partnership focuses on the gathering of economic statistics on the audiovisual industry and its sub-sectors: television, motion pictures, and video. The Mission reports to the Office for Analysis, Statistics, and Documentation, which is a unit of the Ministry s Directorate for Financing, Regulation, Forecasting, and Information. The Mission head also serves as rapporteur of a coordination committee on audiovisual-industry statistics known as the Coordination Committee whose members include representatives of CNC and its main partners. CNC statistical publications The Mission is responsible for all CNC statistical publications, including its much-awaited monthly report on movie-theater attendance. The document, extensively quoted in the media, was redesigned in 1997 to make it more user-friendly for the general public. CNC s many other detailed statistical studies appear in CNC Info, a magazine published six times a year. Two of these are special issues. The first, Bilan ( Balance sheet ), is published in April-May and reports the previous year s The Family Ciné theater in Rodez (southern France) (photo: ADRC/P. Gras) Photomontage Mireille Brunet highlights. The second, Géographie du cinéma ( Geography of cinema ), appears in September and is also devoted to the previous calendar year. It gives local statistics on motion-picture distribution by region, département, and category of town or city, with figures on the number of movie theaters, attendance, and market share of French and U.S. films. CNC Info caters to the needs of industry professionals, government officials, and academics, but also aims at a broader audience. A third CNC publication is its statistical yearbook. It was completely revised in both form and content for the 1997 edition, entitled Les Chiffres clefs du CNC ( CNC key figures ). The volume is divided into twelve chapters: movie-theater resources; movie-theater business; film distribution; films shown in theaters; attendance; movie-goer audience; TV broadcasting of motion pictures; video distribution; exports; motion-picture production; audiovisual production; international environment. Each chapter is divided into three sections: (1) institutional framework, statistical sources, definitions, and bibliographical references; (2) visual summary of main figures; (3) detailed statistical tables. A fourth publication was launched in 1994: an annual compilation entitled Indicateurs statistiques de l audiovisuel ( Statistical indicators for the audiovisual industry ). It is produced in partnership with SJTIC, the Conseil Supérieur de l Audiovisuel (CSA), and the Institut National de l Audiovisuel (INA). The Mission s cooperation with other CNC units The Mission provides methodological support to the other CNC units to help them enhance their production of statistics. One example is the work undertaken in collaboration with the External Relations Department. The goal was to improve export statistics compiled from declarations of revenues earned abroad.6 The declarations record the proceeds of sales of motion pictures abroad for distribution in movie theaters, on video, or on television. They are filed monthly by producers and exporters. In conjunction with CNC s Movie-Theater Operation and Distribution Department, the Mission has set up a specific data base from which it is possible to extract detailed series on attendance by type of movie theater, operator category, geographic area, and so on. In this instance, the need was not so much to improve the statistics on attendance as to facilitate access by 4. More accurately, these statistics concern production estimates rather than actual expenditures. 5. See the article by Bernard Gentil and Jean-Marie Nivlet on Public Statistics on the French Media in this issue, pp The accounting principles used are those of the balance of payments. The statistics obtained complement the box-office figures, which offer a gauge of the popularity of French films as measured by the number of tickets sold in other countries. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

19 Gilles Rotman the statistics-producing unit to its own statistical output. With the same priorities in mind, but on a larger scale, the Mission has worked with the Organization and Information Systems Department to establish an Infocenter. The aim was to assemble CNC s total output of quantitative information in a single data resource. The resource is available to all CNC units for information searches and retrieval in the form of lists, tables, and charts. Monitoring of economic data on the audiovisual industry CNC s statistical work has long given precedence to information on products films and programs over the producer enterprises themselves. To fill this gap, CNC and SJTIC joined forces in the early 1990 to construct a satellite account of the audiovisual industry for the French national accounts. The first version of the account for the base period have recently been published.7 For its preparation, a harmonized data base was compiled and updated to supply the necessary information inputs. Most of the data are extracted from INSEE s Annual Enterprise Survey of the service industries (audiovisual sector) and the supplementary SJTIC/CNC survey on large audiovisual enterprises.8 SJTIC and CNC drew on the data base to prepare a summary publication covering the years and entitled Les Entreprises de l audiovisuel. Carried out with INSEE support, these projects are making a significant, pathbreaking contribution to the CNC statistical system. The Mission and the Statistical Committee A Statistical Committee was formed in 1996 to coordinate audiovisualindustry statistics. Its members include representatives from CNC and its leading partners: CSA, SJTIC, INSEE, Médiamétrie, Observatoire Européen de l Audiovisuel, Ciné Chiffres, Unifrance Film, and the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. The Committee meets twice a year under the chairmanship of the CNC Director-General. It serves as a forum for (1) reporting on current statistical projects particularly the most innovative ones and(2) presentations of general interest on topics in audiovisual-industry statistics. The body gives its opinion on CNC s annual statistical program and assesses the program after completion. The Committee rapporteur is the head of the Statistical Mission. Gilles Rotman Head of CNC Statistical Mission On October 1, 1997, Mr. Rotman was appointed head of the Information and Publications Division of SESSI, the Industry Ministry s Research and Statistics Office 7. Le compte économique de l audiovisuel - cinéma, télévision, vidéo - La base , Paris: SJTIC-CNC-INA, July This supplementary survey was discontinued in 1997 with the introduction of the so-called fourth-generation Annual Enterprise Survey, which amply satisfies SJTIC and CNC information requirements. 20

20 Fifty years of agricultural statistics France set up its first agricultural statistics units in 1946, but the advent of its modern statistical system for agriculture dates from the founding of the Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (Service Central des Enquêtes et Études Statistiques: SCEES) in After the inevitable exploratory phase, followed by the establishment of a nationwide network, the system reached what one might call an equilibrium stage in the late 1970s. The real world, however, is in perpetual flux, posing a constant challenge to statisticians: they must continuously re-examine their methods and boost their productivity to meet ever more varied and complex demands. With citizen pressure being what it is, the time has not yet come when agricultural statisticians can rest on their hard-earned laurels. It is tempting to go back through history in order to show that the earliest statistics date from very ancient times indeed, and that their main focus was on agricultural activities. The explanation is simple: every developed society has a duty to ensure that all its members have adequate food supplies. For our purposes, it is worth recalling that the establishment of a public statistical system was viewed as a major priority as far back as the early nineteenth century. This concern had obvious political implications: a statistical system would make it Ox-drawn plowing possible to predict economic crises, to take appropriate action, and thus prevent many violent social movements. The mid-nineteenth century saw the first ten-year agricultural surveys in the form of rolls for communes (municipalities) filled in by the town officials. French statisticians also began compiling an annual quantitative agricultural inventory called État Modèle V (model V record). The latter document, compiled on the basis of experts estimates, was the forerunner of today s Annual Agricultural Statistics (Statistique Agricole Annuelle). The last ten-year survey well-known to all researchers in French département archives1 was conducted as part of the first world census of agriculture in In the typical fashion of the time, the survey spilled over into , and the publication of results did not begin until Admittedly, the survey upset a caste of experts clinging to their steadfast beliefs, or anxious to conceal some unpleasant truths. Beyond that, however, the delayed publication gave agricultural statistics a negative image that was to last for years. In those pre-war days, of course, data were still tabulated by hand. Post-war disappointments On February 1, 1946, pursuant to a decree of October 19, 1945, J. Chombart de Lauwe opened statistical units in about forty département Directorates for Agriculture. But thirty of these units were shut down in 1948 as part of the fiscal spending cuts requested by the Photograph: French Agriculture Ministry 1.Département: territorial administrative subdivision in France, between the region and the commune (municipality). Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

21 Jacques Galas notorious Hatchet Committee. The dwindling ranks of agricultural-statistics pioneers have very unpleasant memories of that period. The first general agricultural census using individual schedules for each farm2 was initially planned for 1950, but was not actually carried out until under INSEE supervision. Data-gathering posed many psychological and practical problems. The rural population was unwilling to respond to questions that it regarded as inquisitive: the levies by wartime food procurement officers were still fresh in people s minds. Also, the lack of supervisory staff at the département level seriously undermined the quality of the information collected. The preliminary figures were handtabulated for early release; the detailed series were prepared with devices whose names are now forgotten: collators and punched-card tabulators. In February 1956, the Agriculture Ministry set up a group to liaise between its head office and the local units: the Study, Statistical Methods, and Short-Term Analysis Group (Groupe d Étude, de Méthodes Statistiques et de Conjoncture: GREMESCO), which survives to this day. In 1957, the authorities issued a decree reorganizing the agricultural statistics system, but it did not take effect for several years. To break the stalemate, the Agriculture Ministry set up a central division for statistical surveys and studies in On January 6, 1964, this became the Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (Service Central des Enquêtes et Études Statistiques: SCEES). Early days of the SCEES In 1963, the agriculture minister, Edgard Pisani, admitted before the National Assembly that the means at our disposal for a sufficiently precise knowledge of agricultural phenomena are still derisory. Developing resources for statistical studies is essential to ensuring the government s mastery of the problems with which it has to deal. G. Théodore, the first head of SCEES, accordingly set out to establish methods of greater scientific validity than the experts estimates typically used until then. For this purpose, it was necessary to train management-level statisticians and appoint them as heads of agricultural statistics offices within the Agriculture Ministry s directorates in each département. The ENSAE École Nationale de la Statistique et de l Administration Économique trained 145 département agricultural statisticians between 1963 and 1968, of whom about ten were drawn from the ranks of rural-engineering graduates.3 A farm structure survey on a 1/10th sampling frame was carried out in It was followed in 1967 by an EEC survey on a 1/4th frame, which provided an opportunity to set up an initial network of field officers. But sample surveys were not all. The demand for information at a detailed geographic level (the commune, i.e., municipality) was steadily growing, as the government began laying the groundwork for what was coming to be known as the rural development policy agriculture census: the first real test It was no easy task to set up the administrative framework for the département agricultural statistics offices, or the vertical structure for technical coordination from the central SCEES to regional and département units. National requirements were such that the newborn département office worked mainly for Paris, and few data series satisfied the many local needs. The 1970 general agriculture census was the opportunity to show that local and national desiderata could be reconciled. It also provided a life-size test of the new set-up. In each département, there were some 70 to 80 field officers to manage, support, and inspect. The next step was to tabulate and publish the results. The charisma of the promoters, the high level of training of the senior statisticians, and also the pressure from users helped make the census a success. Meanwhile, some of the existing statistical tools were enhanced. The so-called surface-area inspection survey was turned into the TER-UTI survey (for territory utilization ), based on a continuous sample of land parcels displayed on aerial photographs. Grain-crop estimates were supplemented by forecasts of fruit crops and, later, vegetable crops. The Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN; in French, Réseau d Information Comptable Agricole: RICA) a European Community survey set up in the late 1960s began producing truly effective results. These developments brought a major advance in summary statistics. The annual agricultural statistics, then known as État VI, were dramatically enhanced. Agricultural accounts for each département came to replace the computation of gross agricultural product an aggregate similar to département farming sales. Over the years, the increasing demand for information led to a fuller explanation of statistical ethics notably as regards confidentiality and of the vertical integration of the statistical system. Both features were widely accepted. A system perfected over time, with each census A census also serves as a sampling frame for surveys on particular 2.The last ten-year survey, in 1929, used the same method as in the nineteenth century: municipal schedules filled in by commissions. 3. Even today, most management-level agricultural statisticians are ENSAE graduates. 22

22 Fifty years of agricultural statistics An example of technical progress The first sample-based structural survey of French agriculture took place in Officially called the Master Sample, it became known in common parlance as BS63" (for base de sondage, i.e., sampling frame). The sampling fraction was 1/10 throughout France. The sampling plan was simple enough to be summed up in two sentences: All urban communes were surveyed, and one farming concern in ten was sampled in each. One rural commune in ten was surveyed, and all its farming concerns were included. In 1990, SCEES introduced a structural survey scheduled to take place every two or three years during the inter-census period. In other words, this was to serve as a continuous sample. The sampling plan is far more sophisticated. It was initially decided that 800 farming concerns would be surveyed in each département, except in those with fewer than 4,000 farming concerns, where a sampling fraction of 1/5 would be used. The stratification varies for each département and is performed on the basis of two cross-tabulated criteria: - the Groupes d Orientation Technico-Économiques (OTEXs), comprising farming concerns with the same technical and economic-activity specializations; - the standard gross margin (Marge Brute Standard: MBS) brackets, reflecting farm size in business-volume terms. Between 11 and 18 strata were defined for each département. This is a bare summary: the sampling-plan specifications run to several pages. Moreover, the demographics of farming concerns and the goal of maintaining a continuous sample forced statisticians to create a complicated system to trace the descendants of farms that split up or go out of business. The basic issue is to determine if a new farm taking the place of an old one is essentially the successor to a farm in the sample, in which case it is surveyed. If, instead, the new unit is principally the offshoot of a farm outside the sample but inside the sampling frame, it is not surveyed as its presence in the frame gave it a chance of being sampled. On this point too, the instructions to field officers fill several pages and require hours of explanation in training sessions. topics: goats and sheep, cattle, pigs, orchards, greenhouses, etc. These investigations, often undertaken under pressure from the EC, gained acceptance in the 1970s. They later became routine, at the same time as statisticians elaborated the concept of census as sampling frame by instituting the continuous sampling frame (Base de Sondage Permanente: BSP). The second agricultural census took place in 1979, the third in 1988, and the fourth is scheduled for The 1988 operation was characterized by the full computerization of the département offices and the development of the ARISTIDE software program for customized data tabulation. Other tools have been implemented to address the rising demand on ever more specific topics whose scope now embraces the agribusiness sector i.e., the agricultural and food industries in the narrow sense, but also farm-product trading and upstream businesses such as fertilizer and plant-health product manufacturing. The dissemination arrangements were revamped. In 1990, SCEES introduced the Agreste label for all publications by the agricultural statistics network. The label became well known throughout France and the rest of Europe, to the point that many callers today start by asking Is this the Agreste department? A major step forward has recently been taken in the use of administrative information4 for statistical purposes with the implementation of the System for Statistical Information from Administrative Sources (Système d Information Statistique de Source Administrative: SISA). Change and continuity Statistics users perceptions were changing. In the early 1970s, they saw the land-use survey (TER-UTI) merely as a source of data on surface area under cultivation. As they became familiar with the survey, they began to think in terms of woodlands and forests, environment, and landscapes. In response to users queries, statisticians had to adjust their classifications, preserving adequate representativeness while cutting costs. In the early 1970s as well, fruit-crop forecasts placed SCEES in the forefront of statistical progress. Today s fruit-growers also want recent European and sometimes global data, which French statisticians must now do their best to obtain from their colleagues abroad. Another sign of the times is that producers want much more information about processing and distribution to help them make the 4. Europe s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has spawned an ever greater diversity of fact-gathering questionnaires required for the approval of farm subsidies. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

23 Jacques Galas right decisions. The current structural surveys address topics as varied as multiple farming activities, agro-tourism, environmental problems linked to farming, and farm owners non-farm income. It is generally agreed that, in these areas, we are only at the start of a process that will likely lead to a far more specialized survey system. While having to adjust to new realities, the statistician must also maintain a fixed data base allowing comparisons over time. To preserve the continuity of data series, statisticians are very reluctant to stop collecting information they have been accustomed to obtaining as a matter of course for years. But the capabilities of the statistical system cannot be stretched to infinity. How much self-knowledge does a society want? This question, posed by one of the authors of Pour une histoire de la statistique (For a History of Statistics),5 is coming to haunt statisticians. The world of agriculture has significantly evolved, it is increasingly complex, and its players themselves are no longer willing to take decisions unsupported by statistical data. We will therefore have to ask farther-reaching questions and devote greater resources to information gathering and dissemination. But up to what point? If the need for statistics intensifies as much as we expect, then a comprehensive review of the situation will be required. Is it up to government to meet demand? What role should the private sector play? The answers depend more on society than on the statistical system. Once again, we have reached a crossroads. But experience teaches us that none of the paths chosen will be final. Jacques Galas Head of the Regional Agricultural Statistics Office (Service Régional de Statistique Agricole: SRSA) for Languedoc-Roussillon 5. Volume published by INSEE. Harvesting rye with a scythe Photograph: French Agriculture Ministry 24

24 SCEES and the agricultural statistics network The Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (Service Central des Enquêtes et Études Statistiques: SCEES) originates and coordinates the statistical activities of the French Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry in the following areas: agriculture, forestry, rural areas, and the food industries (Industries Agro-Alimentaires: IAAs).1 SCEES relies on two levels of decentralized units: the Regional and Département Agricultural Statistics Offices (Services Régionaux de Statistique Agricole [SRSAs] and Services Départementaux de Statistique Agricole [SRDAs]). These operate respectively in the Ministry s Regional and département Directorates for Agriculture and Forestry.2 As a result, SCEES is the only public statistics office to have units at its disposal in each département. This grass-roots organization is a key factor in ensuring the high quality of information collected from farmers. The workload is heavily constrained by European Community regulations and directives. This is especially true owing to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for all agricultural matters. Surveys... The SCEES s work is largely devoted to a few major surveys that form the backbone of the system. Agricultural statistics on farming concerns, farmers, and production rely on the general agricultural censuses (Recensements Généraux de l Agriculture: RGAs), performed every ten years, and on inter-census surveys on farm structure. These are complemented by an array of surveys on specific topics: surveys on livestock and arable land, surveys of fruit and vegetable business trends, and monitoring of retail prices and price quotations. Other surveys of a technical nature address issues such as crop practices and their improvement for environmental purposes. A final component is the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN: French RICA), covering a sample of about 7,500 concerns that keep their books in compliance with EC accounting standards. For agribusiness and forestry, the main sources of information are the annual enterprise surveys and industry surveys. In practice, the latter are extensively delegated to about thirty approved trade organizations and, more recently, to the National Joint-Trade Office for Grains (Office National Interprofessionnel des Céréales: ONIC) and the National Joint-Trade Office for Milk and Dairy Products (Office National Interprofessionnel du Lait et des Produits Laitiers: ONILAIT). Some surveys are carried out to meet the requirements of the European Community regulation on product classification (PRODCOM). Other major SCEES undertakings include the survey on energy consumption and the monitoring of farming-equipment purchase prices. The chief land survey is the TER-UTI survey: direct field observations are used to compile land-use statistics based on a dual classification according to physical and functional criteria....and enumerators The surveys of farmers and agricultural production are carried out by the SDSAs. The regional offices (SRSAs) coordinate the operations of the département offices and play a direct role in gathering information on forestry. They also manage the FADN. The gathering of data on food industries is shared between the central office and the regional offices. Collection procedures differ according to the intended audience and the type of questions asked. Surveys of businesses are conducted by mail; surveys of farmers are carried out by enumerators, in a face-to-face situation for the more complex interviews and by telephone for the rest. Data collection thus relies heavily on a network of some 700 enumerators, hired and managed by the département agricultural statisticians. The enumerators are paid per question form. They often have other occupations: a significant percentage are farmers wives. Their balanced geographic distribution and their effective integration into the agricultural community are vital to the surveys success. Large-scale 1. Fisheries and agricultural education are handled respectively by the Ministry s Directorate for Sea Fisheries and Sea Farming and the Directorate General for Education and Research. 2. The SCEES structure is modeled on that of the Agriculture Ministry itself, which is in charge of land-use and land-management issues (concerning not only farm production but also rural development). The Ministry s operational echelons are, in effect, its département Directorates. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

25 Michel Bertin Other statistical producers in the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry and related organizations Ministry s central departments The Central Statistics Office of the Directorate for Sea Fisheries and Sea Farming collects, processes, and disseminates statistics on the two areas covered by the Directorate. The Market News Unit centralizes official quotations of market prices for perishable goods, and publishes them in an official bulletin. The Stud Farm, Horse Racing, and Horse Riding Office compiles various statistics, often on a partial basis, on its administrative work and on horse-related economic activities. The Office plans to set up a unit to monitor all these activities. Public agencies The National Joint-Trade Organization for Grains (Office National Interprofessionnel des Céréales: ONIC) conducts the PRODCOM survey in the cereal industries on behalf of the Ministry. The National Joint-Trade Organization for Milk and Dairy Products (Office National Interprofessionnel du Lait: ONILAIT) performs the PRODCOM survey in the dairy industries on behalf of the Ministry. The National Forest Inventory Office keeps continuous track of France s forestry resources. Statistical work scattered among many units Research on agriculture seems to be rather widely scattered across the central administrative office [of the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry] and the agencies it supervises, even if one examines general-information studies only. SCEES compiles current agricultural statistics by monitoring short-term trends and markets. At the Ministry Directorate for Financial and Economic Affairs, the Studies, Programs, Assessment" (Études, Programmes, Évaluation: EPE) Sub-Directorate is the most significant center within the Ministry, even though its staff is small: it prepares and publishes long-term and short-term studies; it manages research funds allocated to third-party teams; it is responsible for future-oriented studies; and it contributes to the enhancement of the instruments and methods that have been formalized for such work. Most of the Ministry s other directorates are also eligible for funding that they can allocate to third-party contributors; the studies they perform are most often linked to decision-making. The Department of Rural Economics and Sociology at the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) has sizable resources at its disposal and organizes its research on a program basis. Another category of studies is carried out by product-specific organizations, technical institutes, and technical centers." Edmond Malinvaud (former INSEE Director-General) Report to the Prime Minister, January 1997 Statistical and Economic-Studies Functions in Central Government Departments 26

26 SCEES and the agricultural statistics network operations such as the general agricultural census (Recensement Général de l Agriculture: RGA) or the inventory of municipal resources (inventaire communal) periodically confirm the value of this grass-roots organization. SCEES adopted computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) technology in the spring 1998 inventory of municipal resources. The quality of the enumerator network and staff cutbacks are two arguments in favor of extending the use of computerized methods. Administrative data Little use is made of data from administrative sources. There are several reasons for this: the constant changes in regulations, the low priority attached by ministry directorates to processing this type of data, and the prudence of statisticians. Some progress has been achieved, however. One example is the analysis of administrative records on subsidies granted in proportion to farm surface area, which are managed by the département Directorates for Agriculture and Forestry (DDAFs). Data are compiled by SCEES as part of the System of Statistical Information of Administrative Origin (SISA). Other applications of administrative data are being planned in connection with the establishment of the General Continuous Livestock-Identification System (Identification Permanente Généralisée des Animaux: IPGA), which mainly covers cattle. Summaries Statistical summaries are a key component of the SCEES work program. There are two major operations under this heading: - the annual agricultural statistics, which present series of physical quantities (surface areas, workforce, unit yields, prices) for each département; - département agricultural accounts. Dissemination Agreste the common trademark used for all material disseminated by the agricultural statistics network is a name familiar to the entire French agricultural and agribusiness community. The publications that carry the Agreste logo have become the reference standard in government and in the industry. SCEES has thus succeeded in moving beyond statistical production by publicizing the studies it prepares from the data it has compiled. Michel Bertin Deputy head of SCEES Paris Farming Show Photograph: Jean-Pierre Bouteloup, INSEE Head Office Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

27 Michel Bertin The agricultural statistics network SCEES 251 rue de Vaugirard Paris Cedex 15 - France - phone / fax route de Narbonne / Complexe agricole d Auzeville / BP 88 / Castanet-Tolosan phone / fax Office Head phone Jose.rey@agriculture.gouv.fr José Rey Deputy Head Michel Bertin International Christian Gay Administrative Sources Jean-Claude Porchier Dissemination Evelyne Sirota General Affairs ( ) Jacky Bodin National Printing, Inspection, and Data-Extraction Facility * Michèle Lacoste Statistical Information Unit Anne-Marie Matherat Statistical Media Unit Roger Gayral Statistical Methods and Information Office Erik Demaret Coordination of Agricultural Statistics on Overseas Georges Ronce Départements Unit SUB-DIRECTORATES Sub-Directorate for Statistics on Farming and Forestry Concerns( ) René Cluniat OFFICES Farming and Rural Environment Structures Unit Jean-Marc Frémont Plant and Forestry Statistics Unit Nicole Bonneviale Livestock Statistics Unit Jean-Louis Fraysse Sub-Directorate for Statistics on Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Industries ( ) Georges Decaudin Enterprise Surveys Unit Industry Surveys Unit Jean-Claude Teurlay Bernard Pous Sub-Directorate for Summary Statistics Magali Demotes-Mainard General Short-Term Trends and Analysis Paul Casagrande Accounts and Income Unit Maurice Desriers Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) Emmanuel Chantry * 95 résidence Jeanne Hachette - BP Beauvais Cedex - France - phone / fax Note on telephone numbers: when dialing from abroad, replace the first 0" by the access code for France, Regional Agricultural Statistics Offices (SRSAs) One SRSA in each region of metropolitan France (mainland + Corsica). They are located in the Agriculture Ministry s Regional Directorate for Agriculture and Forestry (DRAF), with three exceptions: Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Haute-Normandie, and Alsace are covered by the SRSAs of Picardie, Basse-Normandie, and Lorraine respectively. 4 Agricultural Statistics Offices (SSAs) for overseas départements One SSA in the Département Directorates for Agriculture and Forestry of Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, and Reunion Island. 90 Département (or bi-département) Agricultural Statistics Offices (SDSAs) One SDSA for each département outside the Paris area. They are located in the Ministry s Directorate for Agriculture and Forestry of that département (DDAF), with the following exceptions: The Alpes-Maritimes and Var départements are served by a bi-département office located at the Var DDAF. The Eure-et-Loir and Loiret départements are served by a bi-département office located at the Loiret DDAF. The Territoire-de-Belfort is served by the Franche-Comté SRSA. The Paris area is served by three SDSAs. One of these is located at the Regional and Inter-Département Directorate for Agriculture and Forestry of the Île-de-France (Paris region), serving the Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne départements; the other two are located in the Essonne and Val-d Oise DDAFs respectively. 28

28 The Head of the Regional Office of Agricultural Statistics (SRSA) For the past three decades, the French Agriculture Ministry s statistical units have been organized into a network comprising a central office, regional offices, and département offices. Smooth operations require a continuous compromise between potentially divergent demands. Projects must be tightly coordinated yet capable of satisfying local requirements an increasingly vital issue. At the same time, the system calls for a high degree of autonomy in the decentralized units as well as excellent links among them, and between them and the central office. The statistics offices must preserve a clearly distinct identity while maintaining close ties with the units responsible for the ministry s other missions. The heads of the Regional Offices of Agricultural Statistics (Services Régionaux de Statistiques Agricoles: SRSAs) play a key role in this system. Their various duties illustrate the extent to which in-house and external relationships are crucial to the success of the statistical mission. Contrary to what is sometimes argued, statistics is not a purely technical matter. This statement is valid well beyond the realm of agricultural statistics. Orchestrating a busy network The ministry s agricultural statisticians in each département (known as Statisticiens Agricoles Départementaux: SADs) need to display high professionalism and a genuine team spirit as well as an extremely open-minded attitude to their various partners outside the ministry and in all other ministerial offices. Planning a project single-handedly or trying to overcome a problem by digging in are recipes for failure. Indeed, the same is true of all other officials in the agricultural statistics network. It is the task of the SRSA head to foster (if need be), preserve, and strengthen that spirit of professionalism and cooperative behavior. SRSA heads must offer support to newly appointed SADs; they must make sure that the technical competencies of senior SADs are kept up to par; and they must remain attentive to the needs of the local agricultural community. The SRSA head must arrange meetings of statisticians at regular intervals, open to all personnel even below management level, as well as to outside participants. These may include industry representatives, SCEES staff, and employees from other ministry units or other Drawing by Anne-Sophie Louault government agencies. The minutes of the meetings should be prepared in a timely manner and a copy distributed to SCEES. Widely circulated in the central statistics office, these minutes provide valuable accounts of potential problems encountered at the local level. Naturally, they do not dispense with the need for individualized exchanges when SCEES units have to be consulted on a specific issue. The SRSA head must, of course, develop all the other resources for inter-office communication such as the circulation of documentary material, publication exchanges, press-clipping files, and so on. Liaising with SCEES The SRSA head coordinates the activities of his or her office and those of the agriculture-statistics offices (SDSA) in the region s départements with a view to carrying out the general work program Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

29 Gérard Raulin defined by SCEES. The SRSA head defines the respective duties of the regional office and the département offices, tells everyone who is to do what, and makes sure that the work is proceeding as planned. With the SADs, the SRSA head examines any problems encountered in applying the central office directives, as well as any other difficulties that may arise. He or she feeds the resulting information back to SCEES at a GREMESCO session,1 an ordinary working meeting, or on a hot line basis if the urgency of the situation justifies it. In the other direction, the SRSA head forwards the gist of GREMESCO and other meetings with the central office back to the regional units. In a word, the SRSA head conveys the views and desiderata of the département offices under his/her responsibility to the SCEES, and vice versa. The SRSA head s role as go-between is essential for network efficiency, as the SCEES cannot stay in regular, direct contact with more than 90 local offices. However, direct links with individual département officers have always been maintained via working groups, discussions to settle specific technical problems, and other channels. As a rule, SCEES establishes such contacts through the regional offices, except when the matter is too urgent, in which case the regional office is advised as soon as possible. Maintaining momentum The SRSA head must find the best application areas, suggest paths to explore, convince people, convene 1. The Groupe d Étude, de Méthodes Statistiques et de Conjoncture "Study, Statistical Methods, and Short-Term Analysis Group" comprises SCEES and the SRSA heads. It meets three times a year. task forces, get projects started, and monitor their progress. The most commonly tacked issues are dissemination, local surveys, local complements to the general survey program, methodology, information quality, and training. The point is to suggest more efficient working methods than each SDSA acting in isolation, and to bridge the gaps between administrative boundaries and the physical and farming geography of the region. In this undertaking, the SRSA head may well encounter resistance: the most frequent objections concern the risk of a heavy paperwork burden, loss of autonomy, and confusion of roles. Building up competencies through small, practical projects is one way to dispel exaggerated fears. Supporting the SADs The SADs must have an accurate idea of the problems faced by their partners, examine to what extent they can help solve these problems, offer proposals for doing so, deal with feedback questions, and show their partners that they (their partners) can make a genuine contribution to statistical work. A thorough knowledge of the local environment is, of course, essential. The SRSA head must accordingly spare no effort to facilitate the SDSAs relations with their local interlocutors: the head of the Agriculture Ministry s département Directorate for Agriculture and Forestry (DDAF) and its other offices, trade organizations, other government agencies, etc. Likewise, the SRSA head must promote projects involving the Ministry s statistics offices, other government departments, and bodies serving as intermediaries between government and the industry. Even a modest involvement by the SRSA head can sometimes allow a project to go ahead in circumstances where it could have been stalled by the partnership s confinement to the département level. The SRSA head has the following obligations: maintain regular contacts with the community leaders who deal with the SDSAs; stay well informed about the psychological climate in each département, build trusting relationships with the SADs so that any problems will be reported; meet each SAD once a year for an annual review, advise them, and take appropriate action within reasonable limits when needed. An appropriate forum for keeping in touch is the coordination meeting between the Regional Directorate (DRAF) and département Directorates (DDAFs), at least in the regions where it is held at regular intervals. The SRSA head should attend from time to time, in order to discuss issues of relevance to statistics offices. Backing the SDSAs The SRSA missions include services to the SDSAs such as computing and methodological support, coordination and follow-up of farmer surveys, publishing assistance, and so on. The SRSA head assesses requirements, proposes action plans, generates momentum, and monitors progress. It is also the head s responsibility to train the civil servants in his or her regional office for such support tasks. Often, these personnel are younger than the SDSA officers they will assist. Gérard Raulin Head of SCEES 30

30 The département agricultural statistician The département Agricultural Statistics Offices (Service Départementaux de Statistique Agricole: SDSAs) were set up between 1965 and They were assigned the mission of carrying out a survey program prepared by the Agriculture Ministry s Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (SCEES: see above, pp ). Since that period, the job of the département agricultural statisticians (Statisticiens Agricoles Départementaux: SADs) has changed substantially. They have had to adapt to the profound changes in their field of study, the successive reorganizations of the Ministry s local offices, and technological and methodological advances. The scope of their work has broadened and diversified. In particular, they now dedicate substantial amounts of time to satisfying local demand for statistical information. confidentiality, but who could be sure the secrets would be kept? Enforcing the rule was, at any rate, difficult: the SAD often faced pressure from colleagues in other units wanting to access records in order to complete a subsidy application or check disastercompensation claims. The pioneers of agricultural statistics in the départements had to contend with more than cultural obstacles. Despite the highly concentrated field of investigation, the work program was ambitious, ranging from standard surveys on farming-unit structure to specific surveys on dwellings, orchards, pig headage, and so on. But staff shortages were common. Luckily, SCEES funding made it possible to hire competent field officers under contracts designating them as long-term non-tenured government employees. For typing services, however, the statisticians A local specialty generally had to plead with neighboring offices to obtain some hours from the typists pool. Over the years, the survey program intensified and the teams expanded. By the early 1980s, the statistics offices were investing in PCs....and today The legitimacy of statistical work has gradually been accepted as self-evident, and the SDSAs are now recognized both inside the Ministry and by outside observers as among the most efficient units of the département Directorates for Agriculture and Forestry (DDAFs). The general work program has been diversified to encompass rural-society and environmental issues. Meanwhile, SDSAs are now very busy answering local request for statistical information. Back in the sixties... The sudden arrival of the first département agricultural statisticians in the Ministry s département directorates was not always a welcome event. A work program defined by the central office (SCEES), plus a specific funding allocation for surveys and related expenses that conferred a semblance of financial autonomy on the newcomer all these were indeed a source of potential irritation for a département directorate head. Meanwhile, the prospect of surveys what is more, compulsory ones caused some unease in the farming community, where discretion if not a wariness of outsiders are the norm. True, there were rules of statistical Photo by the Gers DDAF Courrier des statistiques, English series no.5,

31 Marcel Ricaud The many, diverse publications under the Agreste imprint have become one of the most attractive showcases for the DDAFs.1 The SAD maintains special ties with the Conseil Général (the local elected council of the département), the Chamber of Agriculture and its associated farming organizations, which include: farmers management and accounting centers, the département livestock agency, the département association for the structural improvement of farming concerns, etc. To deal with the unending stream of outside requests for information, the SDSA undertakes a number of customized projects such as surveys on the demand for local services (for example, convenience stores), surveys of cellaring facilities in individual farms, soil investigations, and so on. All-purpose statistics In a département like the Gers one of France s most agricultural and rural the SDSA plays a crucial role. The Statistics Office is not only responsible for implementing the general programs defined annually by the Agriculture Ministry. It also satisfies an impressive volume of local requests for statistical information. The inputs are needed for briefing, forecasting, advisory work, and decision-making in such diverse areas as viticulture, foie gras production, the war on nitrates, European zoning regulations, and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). 1 Local economic players, both in the private and public sectors, do not hesitate to call on the services of the Statistics Office head and his co-workers. And, to further underscore the objectivity characteristic of the numbers people, the SDSA head has been appointed communication manager for the Gers DDAF. Guy Beisson Head of the Directorate for Agriculture and Forestry of the Gers département 1. As regards the CAP, the Statistical Office forecasts and simulations since 1992 have allowed an objective definition of département strategies and have proven remarkably accurate six years later. Requests from within the DDAF are also frequent and varied. Colleagues come to the statistics office to access data bases, obtain computer-generated maps, and prepare desktop-published documents. SDSA technicians are 1. Agreste is the brand label for all publications by the Agriculture Ministry s central, regional, and département statistics offices. unanimously praised for their helpfulness and computing skills. As a rule, it is one of these technicians who acts as deputy manager of the DDAF computer system. Many of the managers themselves are former SDSA staffers. The age when the SDSA was sometimes perceived as a State within a State is long gone. Indeed, SDSA heads are now very often responsible for DDAF communication! Marcel Ricaud Head of the Département Agricultural Statistics Office (Service Départemental de Statistique Agricole: SDSA) for the Gers 32

32 Organization of the Agriculture Ministry s statistics offices Recent trends and issues In recent years, the Agriculture Ministry s statistics offices have been confronted by two issues: a further partial relocation of central-office units away from Paris, and the growing concerns over the long-term future of the département offices. SCEES head Gérard Raulin offers a historical review of events and an analysis. In , the Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (Service Central des Enquêtes et Études Statistiques: SCEES) underwent a further partial transfer of some of its units from Paris to Toulouse. This decision was the consequence of a broader government policy decision to relocate government units away from Paris as a form of regional development. Meanwhile, since 1992, concerns have emerged over the future of the agricultural statistics network in the départements. These concerns, as well, are tied to a wider policy issue: the cutback in central-government jobs and spending. From an internal standpoint, however, the two issues are entirely different. It is therefore convenient to discuss each separately. The SCEES decentralization experience Since the late 1970s, SCEES operates in three locations: Paris (120 people in 1992), Toulouse in the south-west (60 people in 1992), and Beauvais, in Picardy (15 people in 1992). The addition of the Beauvais unit actually resulted from the reorganization of the Picardy regional offices; it did not proceed from a deliberate intention to redistribute government resources between the Paris region and the rest of the country. By contrast, the opening of the Toulouse office was part of the first wave of decentralization in the 1970s, which already sought to scale down Paris-based government facilities to the benefit of France s regions. As of December 31, 1991, the 60 employees in Toulouse, including 19 level A management staff, were directing and tabulating most of the SCEES surveys of farming concerns and industrial firms, in liaison with the decentralized offices. Toulouse also took on an increasing amount of publication, dissemination, and promotion work. The teams were placed under the local management of the head of the Toulouse Center reporting directly to the head of SCEES and under the control of the deputy directors and office managers (chefs de bureau), all of them based in Paris. The statistical offices were thus, so to speak, cut in half. Despite this, the cooperation between the Paris and Toulouse units of the central office was fairly smooth. SCEES s seniority and the services it had already rendered in the name of regional employment did not shield the central office from renewed attention by decentralization planners in Prime Minister Edith Cresson s government in In the decentralization decisions of January 1992, SCEES was asked to transfer a further 80 jobs to Libourne, in the south-west département of Gironde. Why such relentlessness? Several factors seem to have played a part. To begin with, the Agriculture Ministry was especially well attended to in this transfer wave. After all, is it not the ministry responsible for the countryside, farmers, and the forests? Second, in the Agriculture Ministry and elsewhere, regional development officials and organizers regard statisticians as good candidates for relocation. Being rather well organized, they will survive the shock, or so it is assumed. They are perceived as somewhat enigmatic technicians, staunchly defending their autonomy and professional ethics. In the provinces the argument goes they will find the perfect calm setting in which to crunch their numbers. Statisticians doubtless do not adequately emphasize the intensity and frequency of their relationships with their customers, i.e., the ministry directorates, trade organizations, and other units of the statistical system. Other prestigious statistical offices have been effectively decentralized or have come very close to being so. As for the choice of Libourne, it was a matter of territorial balance and not, of course, dictated by in-house operating considerations. Nineteen-ninety-two was spent recovering from the shock and lobbying for a geographic correction. If there was going to be a move, Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

33 Gérard Raulin Toulouse would be more practical than Libourne. The request was approved in early 1993, in exchange for INSEE s promise to install one of its units in Libourne by way of compensation: the facility turned out to be the INSEE Training Center (Centre de Formation de l INSEE à Libourne: CEFIL) : a new relocation In Toulouse, a 300-square-meter extension was added to the existing complex to house SCEES and three other transferred units of the Agriculture Ministry. SCEES made changes in its organization by relocating two sub-directorates and seven bureaus in Toulouse. In all, 60 jobs were transferred from Paris to Toulouse, but only 18 employees took the same path. In all, one-half of these true relocated workers and employees already working in Toulouse changed jobs, taking advantage of the unusually large number of new positions created. And, of course, many employees joined SCEES to replace the Parisians who did not want to leave for Toulouse. These reassignments generated substantial personnel turnover, but also some problems in ensuring continuity. Filling the Toulouse vacancies was not difficult, there being no shortage of well-qualified applicants. The relocation of the ex-parisians was not always easy. In particular, their spouses often had problems finding SCEES staff work, and in some cases had to accept a complete career change. Nevertheless, these new Toulousains now appear satisfied. Two years later, only one employee has asked to be transferred back to Paris. Some employees whose positions were transferred to Toulouse applied for other positions in Paris: these reassignments were not very easy. There were a number of complications: lack of mobility experience for some, problems in matching special skills with vacancies for others, and, more generally, an adverse context due to job cutbacks and reorganization threats. Fortunately indeed, the extra vacancies needed to absorb this demand were obtained with relative ease. By and large, the investment needed for the transfers remained within the forecast limit of FRF400,000 per position. Current resources were not increased, despite the new expenses. On the contrary, the general cost-cutting measures were applied without any special leniency. Preserving unity between three locations, and keeping in touch with the regions After two years of operation, the new distribution of tasks at SCEES is broadly satisfactory. The Toulouse units are now fully staffed, which makes their internal operations easier. There was a danger of SCEES losing its unity if the Paris and January 1, 1992 January 1, 1998 Paris Toulouse Beauvais Total Toulouse centers failed to cooperate effectively. There was also the risk that the Toulouse teams would be marginalized with respect to their interlocutors still based in Paris: ministry units and directorates, joint-trade offices for agricultural products, industry organizations, and other statistical offices. For the time being, these risks are reasonably well-contained, although vigilance is still required. Modern technologies for travel-less contact notably messaging and videoconferencing are extensively applied to in-house communications. They are also used for external purposes, but to a lesser extent so as to preserve a significant level of outside contacts involving travel. Paradoxically, the relocation of the central office mainly complicates its relationships with the regional and département offices. First, it is more expensive to arrange a meeting of colleagues from all over France in Toulouse than in Paris. Second, within the constant budget allocation to central-office staff, it is the funding for travel to relocated units that has been cut in order to offset the increase in the cost of other travel assignments. However regionalized they may now be, the management-level staff of the Toulouse SCEES facility have fewer opportunities to visit their colleagues in other decentralized units away from the capital. This phenomenon already occurred in the wave of relocations of the 1970s. Another stumbling-block is the lack of a clear legal definition in the laws and regulations on government-agency organization about the central-government units that have been relocated in the regions. As a result, personnel management, employee-employer relations, and financial management are conducted according to hybrid and empirical methods that borrow from the rules applied to Paris-based central units and to decentralized units. The present arrangements are 34

34 Organization of the Agriculture Ministry s statistics offices Toulouse is farther away than Paris Some thoughts on France s hexagonal geography By road, the average distance between Toulouse and the 94 département prefectures of mainland France 1 is 545 kilometers versus 408 for Paris. Only 35 of these prefectures are closer to Toulouse than to Paris. The difference is even greater for the 19 regional prefectures where the Agriculture Ministry s regional agricultural statistics offices (SRSAs) are located: 558 kilometers for Toulouse, 381 for Paris. 2 Of these, only six are closer to Toulouse than to Paris. And that s not counting the crossings of the mountainous Massif Central. By plane or train, one can leave from any of the regional prefectures in the morning and arrive in Paris for a meeting beginning at a reasonable hour (9:30). For Toulouse, only 11 regional prefectures are within such close reach. Likewise, return journeys are often easier from Paris than from Toulouse. Naturally, travel to Toulouse is as a rule more expensive than travel to Paris, not only because of the distance but also because of connections and the lesser traffic on direct links with Toulouse. As a result, meeting organizers who want to keep their accounts in balance and, at the same time, avoid keeping participants away from their desks for too long and ensure their well-being will invariably prefer Paris to Toulouse just as they would prefer Paris to Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyon, or Marseille. That is why so many SCEES central meetings are held in Paris. However, one common solution for issues that require participation by all regions is to hold some meetings in Toulouse and others in Paris. The system does have its positive side, as the work is facilitated by the fewer participants, but the logistics are much heavier. The pioneers of a regional reconquest may, of course, argue that such difficulties are temporary, that one need only be patient since transportation flows and therefore costs will eventually become more balanced, and that what exists in Germany should be able to take hold in France. 3 But there are three main reasons to fear that polycentric organizations in France will long remain cumbersome and costly. First, France has a far greater surface area than Germany 550,000 square kilometers versus 349,000 which increases travel distances, times, and costs. Second, its population density is much lower, at 106 inhabitants per square kilometer versus 234, which makes infrastructure financing harder and decreases flows. Third, its terrain is rougher, and not only on the periphery. 1. I.e., excluding Corsica and the overseas départements. 2. The regional offices located in Amiens, Caen, and Metz each cover two regions, respectively: Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardie; Basse-Normandie and Haute-Normandie; Alsace and Lorraine. 3. The historical context is very different. If Berlin s weight in Germany is far smaller than that of Paris in France, and if Germany has many big cities that all play a key role in the country s economy, it is largely because German unity is relatively recent, dating from the second half of the nineteenth century. A kilometer on foot wears out [your soles]... and to think that we don t even get a shoe Drawing by Anne-Sophie Louault working rather well, however. Indeed, the solutions that have been proposed so far to fill the legal vacuum such as defining offices with nationwide responsibility (services à compétence nationale) might have some drawbacks. SDSAs: fragile but indispensable The département agricultural statistics offices (SDSAs) were set up between 1965 and 1970 to conduct the program of surveys of farmers and their partners (suppliers, customers, government departments). They have since considerably evolved to adjust to several developments: the sweeping changes in their field of observation, the successive reorganizations of the Agriculture Ministry s decentralized offices, technical and methodological progress, and the enlargement of their mandate with the establishment of procedures to satisfy local requests for information. In sum, this structure which is unique in the French statistical system has faced other challenges before. Yet its long-term survival is uncertain. The noose of constraints is steadily tightening. SDSAs are small teams that need to preserve a distinct professional identity setting them apart from resource inspection and allocation units. The statistics teams have to orchestrate a wide network of contacts both inside and outside the département directorate encompassing correspondents in the agricultural sector, field officers, employees in other Ministry units, and so on. All this requires a high degree of availability. The statisticians tasks are varied, from basic data gathering to extraction and dissemination, not to mention the preparation of information summaries and the judicious use of experts estimates. The national and EU statistical programs represent a Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

35 Gérard Raulin sizable workload in most départements; meanwhile, there is the ever-growing local need for statistical information as background for effective exchanges between central-government representatives and the farming industries. For all these reasons, it is impossible to imagine at present that the SDSAs would be able to continue functioning efficiently if they faced further staff cutbacks. The minimum requirement is three people i.e., 2.5 full-time equivalents. However, the reduction in the total workforce of the département directorates for agriculture (DDAFs) despite the slowness of the process is eroding the staff strength of the statistics offices and threatens their very viability, on account of their small size. If the constraints were not so powerful, the legitimacy of the existence of the département statistics offices would not be an issue, at least as long as the département directorates remain as important as they now are in the grassroots implementation of French and EU agricultural policies. The statistical network is, in effect, modeled on the overall distribution of responsibilities in the Agriculture Ministry. But it is now clear that the Ministry will be unable to keep this organization in running order despite its theoretical coherence if it does not find partners willing to assign other tasks to the département statistics offices and contribute the human resources needed to ensure the offices long-term future. The only solution: broader mandates The département directorates have the experience of performing assignments on behalf of several ministries. They are, for example, placed at the disposal of the Environment Ministry, for which they perform an increasing amount of work. The directorates have therefore accepted the idea of diversifying the activities of their statistics offices by exploiting their comparative advantages: knowledge of the rural environment, methodological and technical experience, and an ability to observe and describe phenomena for which the département is an appropriate reference unit. Environmental issues in rural and semi-rural areas are increasingly important to the general public and the authorities: much remains to be done to supply the players with statistical information that is adequate in quantitative and qualitative terms. But in these days of constraints on government spending initiatives the Environment Ministry is having trouble assembling the resources needed to create the same kind of momentum that drove the creation of a modern agricultural statistics system in the 1960s. For its part, INSEE is exploring the possibility of conducting the population census as a continuous revolving census. If the project materializes, the département directorates and their statistics offices are well placed to assume responsibility for the operation in rural areas. Should these initiatives be approved, progress will have to be fairly swift to make sure the département units still exist when they are needed! If that is not the case, a decision will have to be taken to revamp the current system from top to bottom. Better to plan for every contingency The point we have tried to make here is that it would be reckless not to plan a more robust organization than the present one in order to cope with the cutbacks in the Agriculture Ministry s resources if no other solution emerges. Pooling resources into the regional offices is one option. It has worked at INSEE and in other ministries. But it does not tie in well with the distribution of responsibilities between the Agriculture Ministry s regional and département echelons. Moreover, a transition solution may prove essential to manage a delicate restructuring. With these possibilities in mind, SCEES has tested life-size arrangements for bi-département offices, a compromise solution between the present network and a fallback on the regional facilities. Two bi-département offices (Var and Alpes-Maritimes; Loiret and Eure-et-Loir) have been operating since fall Subject to the conclusions of a future audit, these trial set-ups have shown that one can maintain adequate contacts in the field with the adjacent département through the channels used by statistics offices: field officers, correspondents in the farming community, and département directorate staff. Reorganized at its core and slimmed down at its outer reaches, the agricultural statistics network is gearing up for the next general agricultural census. It will make the operation a success with the backing of the Ministry, which is heavily committed to the census. Afterward, it will be necessary to define for many years to come the broad outlines of the network s decentralized organization according to one of two scenarios: preservation of the département offices with potential partners, or restructuring into the regional offices, with the bi-département centers providing a transitional solution and an alternative in extended areas. Gérard Raulin Head of SCEES 36

36 French agricultural statistics in a global setting The vast garden that is France offers a wealth of agricultural production activities, distributed among a multitude of holdings more than two million at the birth of Europe s agricultural common market. This abundance naturally prompted agricultural statisticians to develop sampling techniques on a large scale. The sheer size of the operations to be undertaken within slow-growing budget allocations promoted the quest for solutions tailored to each broad product category. The development of French agricultural statistics in the TER-UTI* is tops! 1960s was initially driven by the State planning requirements. Fortunately, it also benefited from the favorable circumstances arising from European requirements. These were generated by the birth of the common agricultural policy (CAP) and the introduction of special financing facilities. The French Agriculture Ministry statisticians were thus simultaneously caught up in the expansion of their own system and in that of the Common Market. They accordingly became the inevitable participants in a new and exciting construction venture. Europe The Common Market had only six founder members. This meant a small number of participants in meetings, so that the technical groundwork could be carried out efficiently. The many sessions in Luxembourg achieved rapid progress in the adoption of common definitions and concepts. The most amusing example dates from the time of the preparation of cattle surveys, when hours were spent discussing what constituted a cow. The firm commitment by the Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (SCEES) to become closely involved in the elaboration and implementation of European systems dates from this period. Successive enlargements of the Common Market brought fresh challenges and the need to ensure European consistency. The United Kingdom, for example, had different statistical procedures: it conducted its surveys by mail. Through active bilateral cooperation, SCEES has done its best to help its new colleagues from countries such as Portugal and Greece. International cooperation and agricultural statistics *TER-UTI: French land-use survey Drawing by Anne-Sophie Louault SCEES s mandate does not call for a heavy involvement in foreign systems. However, the prominent role of French agriculture in the European Union often produces a convergence of French and EU interests. SCEES involvement in cross-border issues is therefore essential. Our influence is also due to France s position at the crossroads between northern and southern countries, two groups with very different statistical practices. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

37 Christian Gay The rest of the world With a few exceptions such as specific projects carried out in Africa, Argentina, and China, the impact of SCEES beyond Europe s borders is generally mediated by INSEE thanks to the agricultural expertise acquired by the many Institute staff of attaché rank who have worked in agricultural statistics. The period ahead may well be more fruitful in the wider Europe and in the rest of the world. The enlarged EU will become the world s leading agricultural power and will thus play a more decisive role in shaping global markets. Preparing the admission of central/east European countries For the time being, the main task is to facilitate the entry into the EU of the central/east European countries and that is where the going gets tough. The transition to a market economy and its agricultural corollary land reform and redistribution have radically transformed the existing information channels. The quantitative data bases available to analysts and negotiators are fragile, partial, ill-suited to measuring reality, and their reliability is legitimately open to question. Hence the urgency of launching practical cooperation programs that depart substantially from conventional approaches. These initiatives must be more action-oriented through the implementation of turnkey systems. SCEES is engaged in such programs, albeit selectively given its limited means. One example is in Bulgaria, where we are setting up a large-scale survey project on land use, based on area sampling. The aim is to achieve an objective, reliable study offering representativeness at a regional level and suitable as a model for other countries. The problems are many, but this path appears to be the only possible one. However, it calls for a structural effort at the EU level, on which discussions have already begun, since enormous financial resources will be required. A new era SCEES is endeavoring to promote an ethical code for public agricultural statistics organized in synergy between the national statistical institutes (NISs) and agriculture ministries that seek coordination at EU level as well as projects on a European rather than country-by-country scale. EU enlargement, even in several phases, will entail changes in all countries including the present Fifteen. In agriculture, it is becoming clear that the future European system will no longer be able to content itself with EU statistics derived from aggregations of national figures. We are on the brink of a new era in which true Union statistics will be compiled without a mandatory national representation. Agricultural statisticians under the aegis of Eurostat have begun a medium-term programming that embodies these new goals. Europe will need to conduct an internal reorganization to take CAP changes and enlargement into account. After that, it will have to establish the resources commensurate with its new role as the world s number-one agricultural power. These resources must give it a better knowledge of global markets and hence a better understanding of other regions. On this issue, unfortunately, minds are not yet fully prepared for what is perceived as a still distant issue. Christian Gay Executive Director, International Relations, SCEES 38

38 French agricultural statistics and European issues Until recently, European public opinion was focused on farmers demonstrations against the common agricultural policy (CAP); today, attention has shifted to concerns over environmental and food-safety issues notably in the wake of the mad-cow disease crisis. But protest movements continue to receive extensive media coverage in France: the French still feel strong bonds to the land, and all issues relating to agriculture and the rural world in general strike a powerful chord. The euro has generated discussions over the convergence criteria that is, quantitative indicators. As a result, Europe has been restored to a central position in the political and economic debates. This centrality extends to the field of statistics particularly agricultural statistics all the more so as the EU enlargement to central/east European countries raises an urgent issue: how relevant are the data on which the negotiators will be relying? A highly developed system More than in any other economic sector, quantitative information on agriculture is essential to political decision-makers since it has always provided vital support for the implementation of European market bodies. European agricultural statistics trace their roots back to the mid-1960s. Their growth moved in step with the organization of the continent s agricultural sector. This process involved the transfer to Brussels of what had hitherto been typically national prerogatives. For many years, the CAP was Europe s only truly common policy. Agricultural statistics naturally experienced the vicissitudes of the sector that they were in charge of describing. They expanded and evolved in step with European agriculture itself to become an example of competence at the EC level. Sometimes criticized as over-developed, European agricultural statistics reflect the variety of farm products, geography, and climates. This vast field has to adjust to the shifts in sectoral market policies which are more frequent than is thought. Each organized production entails a need for statistics on the production units, the production itself, prices, trade, and so on. In this respect, agricultural statistics resemble industrial statistics, with which they share common ground when it comes to the agrifoods industries. A heavily regulated system In the days when the Common Market consisted only of its six founder members, agricultural statistics were a consensual issue. Over the years, with the proliferation of product regulations and the entry of new member States, their character has become more compulsory. There has also been the need to bring some countries Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Ireland up to EC standards with the aid of specific, multi-year statistical plans. Photograph by P.S.V. Jean Morel Today, agriculture is by far the most heavily regulated statistical sector. Not counting the treaties, the five-year statistical program presented by the Commission to the Council in January 1998 cites 16 regulatory documents on agriculture in the narrow sense and 5 for fisheries, compared with 12 for industry and only 8 for transportation. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

39 Christian Gay EU regulatory documents on agriculture: the earliest... Council Regulation 79/65/EEC of June 15, 1965, setting up a network (FADN) for the collection of accountancy data on the incomes and business operation of agricultural holdings in the European Economic Community Council Regulation 70/66/EEC of June 14, 1966, on the organization of Community surveys on the structure of agricultural holdings Council Decision 279/72/EEC of July 31, 1972, setting up a Standing Committee for Agricultural Statistics...and the latest Council Decision 411/96/EC of June 25, 1996, on improving Community agricultural statistics Council Regulation 2467/96/EC of December 17, 1996, on the organization of Community surveys on the structure of agricultural holdings Council Directive 77/97/EC of December 16, 1997, amending previous Directives on the statistical surveys to be carried out on pig, bovine animal, and sheep and goat productions A specific organization There is more to the specificity of agricultural statistics, however, than the mass of legislation applied to them. The preparation and enforcement of these regulations, directives, and decisions are governed by arrangements specific to the sector. The basic reference is Article 46 of the Treaty of Rome, which organizes the CAP, and not Article 213, which deals with information-gathering. In other words, it is the EU Agriculture Ministers who approve the regulations on agricultural statistics. As regards everyday operations, the extremely wide range of agricultural products and statistical analyses on them requires closely targeted meetings. Specialized working groups have been set up to deal with areas such as the structure of agricultural holdings, plant products, animal products, prices, agricultural accounts, supply balances, and so on. These groups are chaired by Eurostat and coordinated by an Agricultural Statistics Committee that meets once a year in an advisory capacity. The committee deals with all general issues. When the meeting functions as an advisory body, it plays a comparable role but going much further back in time to that of the meeting of the directors-general of European national statistical institutes (NSIs). In the legal sphere as well, European agricultural statistics display specific features. The initial discussions take place in the relevant Eurostat group reporting to the Agricultural Statistics Committee. The Commission then submits its proposal to the Council of Agriculture Ministers, which has it reviewed by an ad hoc agricultural statistics group. The French spokesperson in the group is the representative of the Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (SCEES). The same procedure is followed for another Council group specifically in charge of reviewing the legal changes in the oldest mandatory guideline on statistical information: the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), covered by regulation 79/65/EEC of June 15, This experience of more than thirty years explains the skills acquired by SCEES in European negotiations. Pioneers as ever, agricultural statisticians invented the Standing Committee on Agricultural Statistics (SCAS; in French, CPSA) in 1972 for two purposes: to streamline Council documents by cutting out the abundance of technical details, and to shift implementation decision-making to the Commission by instating a delegation procedure that requires the opinion of the Standing Committee. Without going into the details, this example shows that agricultural statisticians were the earliest users of a comitology approach that they helped create, partly through familiarity with the practices developed by their colleagues in charge of agricultural markets. The funding procedures are also specific: by making a greater contribution than Eurostat itself, the Directorate General for Agriculture the Commission s DG VI acts as a guarantor of the efficiency of the information system and the ethical rules that govern it. Always on the leading edge Europe s old agricultural statistics system is in many respects on the leading edge: it needs to adapt continuously to the structural changes in agriculture, and must therefore keep updating its resources and methods. For example, agricultural statisticians were the first to take a close interest in satellite images and image processing. European agricultural statistics are as relevant as ever. Today, they must cope with a series of momentous events in the intra-eu sphere (Agenda 2000, future negotiations with the World Trade Organization) and concerning enlargement to central/eastern Europe. Two figures sum up the importance of the issues at stake for the European Union and France: agriculture accounts for more than 50% of the EU budget, and French agriculture contributes about 22% of the EU15 s final agricultural output. Christian Gay Executive Director, International Relations SCEES 40

40 The INSEE Agriculture Division Information on French agriculture and the agrifoods industries is produced by a vast, complex system comprising government agencies, trade organizations, and research bodies. Within this system, INSEE s Agriculture Division is situated relatively far down the chain, at the summary level, since we focus on price indexes and national accounts. Research and analysis are also an important part of our work. Price indexes INSEE s Agriculture Division calculates a monthly producer price index for agricultural products and an index of purchase prices of agricultural-production inputs. Both indexes form part of the European statistical program. The Division also prepares a wholesale food price index. On a quarterly basis, we compile producer price indexes for the entire range of food and agricultural industries. The monthly producer price index for agricultural products (Indice des Prix des Produits Agricoles à la Production: IPPAP) measures the changes in prices received by farmers for the products they deliver. It is compiled from data provided by about forty government offices and trade organizations: lists of price on real markets, price quotations gathered by interviews with market participants at different transaction stages, administrative recording of transactions (for wine), and data gathered from specific surveys by the Agriculture Ministry s Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (SCEES) and the National Joint-Trade Office for Grain (ONIC). The monthly index of purchase prices of agricultural-production inputs (Indice des Prix d Achat des Moyens de Production Agricole: IPAMPA) monitors the changes in prices of goods and services needed by holdings. It is largely based on a SCEES survey. The Central Office collects monthly price quotations from about 250 sales outlets for some 4,500 items: fertilizers, animal feed, plant-health products, veterinary products and services, seeds, and small tools. Supplementary data on other intermediate-consumption goods and producer durables are gathered by INSEE in a broader framework, i.e., the compilation of the producer price indexes and consumer price index. The wholesale food price index is compiled from price quotations collected at the officially controlled Rungis food market (Marché d Intérêt National) south of Paris by the Agriculture Ministry s Market Data Office. The index tracks the changes in agricultural prices at a stage half-way between production and consumption, in a location where the products various characteristics (variety, quality, origin, etc.) can still be precisely identified. The producer price indexes for the food and agricultural industries measure the changes in the factory gate selling prices of these industries products. Calculated from data gathered by INSEE, they are rebased at regular intervals, industry by industry.1 The rebasing procedure involves an updating of the sample of firms surveyed (business births and deaths), and an updating of the approximately 3,000 products observed, based on reports by INSEE field officers (ingénieurs-enquêteurs). Trade federations also participate in the rebasing process, contributing their first-hand knowledge of the firms and products. All the price indexes compiled by the Agriculture Division are transferred to the INSEE Macroeconomic Data Base (Base de Données Macro-Économiques: BDM). They are published regularly in the Institute s Informations Rapides and Bulletin Mensuel de Statistique (BMS).2 The series are also available on the videotext ( Minitel screen phone) server 3617 PVI. The indexes are used by short-term economic analysts and national accountants for valuation purposes, but also by economic agents (businesses, trade organizations) to track products in their industry or for price-adjustment clauses in contracts. National accounts Our Division is also involved in the general preparation of the national accounts. The areas covered are agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and agrifoods industries. We begin by determining the output and intermediate consumption of these industries, in order to arrive at an estimate of their value added, which is a component of the gross domestic product of the national economy. The data for agriculture, forestry, and fisheries are provided by SCEES and other Agriculture Ministry units, INSEE, and trade organizations. The data on agrifoods 1. Since 1996, with each industry rebasing, the price-collection frequency is being changed from quarterly to monthly. When this conversion process is complete, the indexes themselves will be produced and published on a monthly basis as well probably by year-end The IPPAP and IPAMPA are also published in Bulletin du SCEES. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

41 Philippe Brion Division publications in 1997 (excluding price indexes) (all of the following publications in French; for reasons of space, only the English translations of the titles are given here) In INSEE Première no. 527, June 1997: Agriculture in France and Europe in 1996 (F. Martinez) no. 528, June 1997: The agrifoods industries in 1996: growth confirmed despite the beef crisis (M. Cohen-Solal) no. 540, September 1997: French and EU agrifoods trade (C. Monceau and G. de Peretti) no. 559, December 1997: French and Dutch agrifoods trade: complementary specializations (C. Monceau) no. 561, December 1997: French agriculture account forecast for 1997 (L. Pollina) In Synthèses no. 10, May 1997: Special issue on Agriculture: trends and disparities, with contributions from the Division s chargés d études (research officers) and partner organizations (INRA, SCEES, and Sub-Directorate for Studies, Programs, and Assessment of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food) no , November 1997: contribution to the issue on French trade in industrial goods (article by C. Monceau on agrifoods trade) In INSEE Résultats Production system, no. 123, January 1997: The agrifoods industries in 1995 General economics, no. 148, June 1997: The agriculture accounts in 1996 INSEE working papers 9708: Use of tax data on the agricultural sector (J.Y. Fournier) 9710: Measuring comparative advantage (C. Monceau) as the average gross agricultural income per holding, in real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) terms. In the new 1995 base, a new indicator is used: net value added at factor cost per annual labor unit. The fall session is devoted to the presentation of the eagerly awaited forecasts for the current year. The forecasting methods are more streamlined than the standard national-accounting procedures. They rely mainly on two techniques: a year-long monitoring of agricultural trends, and a short-term analysis of changes in agricultural markets at home and abroad. The agricultural accounts are transmitted to Eurostat in a harmonized form for incorporation into the European agricultural accounts.4 The Division also monitors French trade in agricultural commodities and in agrifoods industry products. The results of these observations are presented to the CCAN. Research and analysis industries come from the SCEES annual enterprise survey. The Division compiles the supply balances of the products concerned. We take part in the broader allocation processes designed to determine value added for each economic sector. The agriculture accounts are submitted twice a year to the National Agricultural Accounts Commission (Commission des 3. As the current procedures for national accounting shift to the new 1995 base, the spring session will cover only three years: revised figures for year n-3, semi-revised figures for year n-2, and preliminary figures for year n Each year, Eurostat publishes a detailed report on European Union farm income (figures for year n-1), which constitutes a comparative analysis of the economic performance of the EU s national agricultural sectors. Before year-end, Eurostat also publishes forecasts of the current-year EU agricultural accounts. Comptes de l Agriculture de la Nation: CCAN), whose members include representatives of the government and agricultural trade organizations, as well as recognized experts in agricultural economics. The following accounts are presented at the CCAN s spring session: the production, generation-of-income, and distribution-of-income accounts of the four previous years (revised figures for year n-4, semi-revised 2 figures for year n-3, semi-revised 1 figures for year n-2, and preliminary figures for year n-1).3 The production and generation-of-income accounts are incorporated into the central framework of the national accounts. The distribution-of-income account, by contrast, was developed under a specific CCAN framework. The balance on this account serves as the basis for computing the agricultural income indicator, defined French agriculture has been marked by several distinctive phenomena since World War II: a heavy concentration of holdings, an ever-greater integration into Europe via the CAP, and a robust agrifoods trade surplus since the late 1970s. The national accounting data provide a macroeconomic framework for these phenomena, but it is also worth using complementary approaches, some of which incorporate the microeconomic dimension. The Division s study program is shaped by external demand for statistical information and by the research conducted by other organizations. But the most powerful determinant is INSEE s privileged position in the public statistical system, and the opportunities this provides in terms of access to administrative sources, notably from tax offices. 42

42 The INSEE Agriculture Division Our current work centers on four major topics: Analysis of agricultural enterprises from a business accounting perspective, mainly on the basis of the tax records for actual farming net income (Bénéfices Réels Agricoles: BRA) (i.e., based on reported figures as against flat-tax arrangement based on estimated income). Long-term study of French agrifoods trade, based on data from the Organization for Economic 5. Tax returns are especially useful for measuring the non-farm income of farmers households. This enables us to complement other research studies via a household-oriented approach. Cooperation and Development (OECD). Study of farm household income based on collation of Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) series and tax returns.5 Analysis of production costs per product and study of holdings and relative disparities, again using FADN series. Some of these studies are undertaken in partnership with other institutions. For example, the Division hosts a researcher from the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA), who, depending on his or her projects, will join our general program or broaden the topics studied. FADN-based studies require teamwork with SCEES; the studies on farm household income are conducted jointly with INSEE divisions specializing in household income. Studies on production costs rely on a model developed jointly by INSEE, INRA, and SCEES. Our Division s studies are reported in INSEE publications and occasionally in non-insee media. They are also the subject of oral presentations, particularly at INSEE seminars and CCAN sessions. Philippe Brion Head of INSEE Agriculture Division A bucolic view of INSEE Photograph by Jonathan Trinquecoste Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

43 A statistical tool for a better knowledge of French forestry assets The national forest inventory The National Forest Inventory (Inventaire Forestier National: IFN) is a public administrative agency operating within the purview of the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry. Its mandate is to compile a continuous census of national forestry resources, irrespective of property issues. IFN was established in its present form by decree no of September 6, 1993, but its origins go back to a government measure (ordonnance) of 1958, which set up a national forest inventory office in the Agriculture Ministry. Our agency conducts a survey of each département in metropolitan France (mainland + Corsica) every years. Observations cover the entire surface area with special attention, of course, to woodlands.1 A two-stage census In the first stage, we analyze aerial photographs of the entire surface area of the département to be inventoried. The photographs are overlaid with a nearly comprehensive sample of points, on the basis of one point per hectares of land. This analysis makes it possible, in particular, to compile a map of the different types of vegetation. At the same time, we describe several characteristic variables of the environment of each of the sample points: land cover and use, vegetation type, geographic The IFN head office is located in Nogent-sur-Vernisson in the Loiret. Five inter-regional echelons based in Bordeaux, Caen, Lyon, Montpellier, and Nancy handle the in-situ inventory. and topographic location (woodland region,2 altitude, exposure), main species (hardwoods or softwoods), volume of wood per hectare classified into three timber-asset categories, and logging patterns. The second phase involves ground checks of the qualitative mapping based on aerial photographs. The checks are performed on sample land areas centered on the points sampled in the first phase.3 We take simultaneous measurements of the stands, trees, and forest environment in order to estimate the surface areas, volumes, and growth rates per species. These operations are confined to wooded areas, using a random sub-sample picked from the initial sample points, after grouping these into strata exhibiting maximum homogeneity. The variables used for this stratification are the ones observed on the photographs, along with the ownership category: State property, other lands subject to official forestry regulations,4 and private properties. Caen Nogent sur Vernisson Lyon Nancy As an example, the latest census in the Landes département involved a photo-interpretation of 30,000 points on aerial photographs, of which 18,000 in woodlands. Of the latter, 1,500 points were inspected and surveyed on the ground. Bordeaux Montpellier In 1997, the IFN employed 180 people (with the status of civil servants) and its budget totaled FRF60 million. 1. Forests, poplar groves (small but highly productive gatherings), tree rows, moors, hedges, and scattered trees. 2. France is divided into 309 woodland regions, which are natural territorial units displaying consistent growth conditions in terms of forestry stands. 3. The sample points located on the aerial photographs are positioned on the ground with extreme accuracy, to within ten meters. 4. Most of these lands belong to local communities. Like the national properties, they are managed by the National Forestry Service (Office National des Forêts: ONF). Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

44 Jean-Marie Valdenaire Resources to match growing needs In recent years, IFN has considerably expanded its information-technology resources as well as its response capabilities in order to deal with the steadily growing demand from institutional players in several areas: forestry management, the wood and timber industries, the environment, and regional planning and development. 5 Requests are varied and cover the full range of geographic levels. IFN has implemented new technologies for data processing, storage, and dissemination, such as portable capture, geographic information 5. IFN answers few questions from the general public, except to issue routine reminders that the surface area of French woodlands is increasing continuously. systems, relational data bases, and networks. A data metabase has been set up, and servers have been opened on the French videotext network ( Minitel screen-phone system) and the Web offering users fast, interactive access to the data. In the same spirit of openness, IFN set up a commercial department in 1994 to provide individualized services on a contract basis. References Buts et méthodes, 1 3rd edition, Inventaire Forestier National. Statistiques Forestières 1995, Agreste. Forestry atlases by region and département, Inventaire Forestier National, 4 vols. 1. An article by Robert Bernard Chevrou under the same title ( Aims and Methods ) was published in no. 30 of the French edition of Courrier des Statistiques (April 1984). Jean-Marie Valdenaire Head of communication and commercial services IFN The French forest in 1997 Woodlands cover a total 14.4 million hectares, or slightly over one-fourth of France s surface area, and they are expanding by 0.3% a year. Of the total, 74% is in private hands, 10% is owned by the State, and 10% by local government. Hardwoods (oak, beech, chestnut, ash, etc.) predominate in 63% of the total area. Softwoods (maritime pine, Norway pine, spruce, fir) predominate in the mountainous regions and the Landes district of Gascony (south-west), i.e., in 37% of French woodlands. Drawing by Anne-Sophie Louault The national afforestation rate the percentage of territory covered by woodlands is 26%. By département, the figures range from 3.6% in the Manche to 60% in the Landes. I ve counted only 271,673,212 and I m not done! 46

45 Mutualité Sociale Agricole: administrative data from an organization serving French agriculture and rural communities The MSA Statistics Department belongs to the Accounting and Financial Division of the MSA central fund (Caisse Centrale). The Department performs three main tasks: (1) it develops and manages MSA information systems; (2) it compiles statistics on the agricultural social-protection system (sickness insurance, old-age insurance, and family allowances) for its government supervisory authorities; (3) it prepares forecasts on MSA financing. Since 1991, the Department is also responsible for producing a varied range of statistical information for non-specialists. This activity meets not only MSA s internal requirements but the growing and ever more diversified demand from third parties a demand that reveals a wider concern over changes in the Mutualité Sociale Agricole (MSA) is the public body in charge of social protection for France s farming population, including payroll and non-payroll workers. MSA insures 4.5 million people. The organization comprises a central fund and local 78 funds covering one or more départements. In 1998, MSA disbursed more than FRF147.5 billion in benefits. agricultural world. The research and analysis on these issues (including computer-based and qualitative studies), as well as the resulting data bases and publications, constitute what is known as the MSA Economic and Social Observatory. The Observatory focuses on four areas: agricultural economics, health, old-age pensions, and families. Its findings are made available to the widest possible audience, starting with MSA members: most publications are free, and user-friendly screen terminals are installed in MSA facilities around the country. COTAGRI and other tools The studies on agricultural economics rely on five major applications: COTAGRI: a data base offering summary information on (1) farm operators (age, sex, etc.) and holdings (business registration number [SIREN], surface area, structure, etc.), (2) contributions collected by MAS, or, more exactly, their assessment base (taxation categories, income from business operations, etc.). The data base is updated yearly using the records of the département funds: the data for year n-1 are loaded at the start of year n. Routine data extraction can be performed down to canton level (i.e., the territorial unit of administration immediately below the département). The Agripanel survey and the New Farmers register (in French: Installations ) provide additional information on the farming population. The Agripanel survey focuses on farmers training and their future plans for their holdings.1 The New Farmers register tracks individuals aged moving into farming activities, with or without subsidies. The classification criteria include the new farmer s age and sex, and the legal status of his/her holding.2 The Department has set up a specific data base with detailed information on farm payroll employment. Coverage includes all categories, i.e., persons working for farming concerns, cooperative farms, and farming-industry organizations. The time frame is a moving ten-year period.3 As with the other bases, the data can be extracted by means of routine procedures down to canton level. The main statistics available concern workforce size, pay, and hours worked. Quarterly tabulations allow a measurement of seasonal effects. In addition, a set of employment indicators will be made available starting in 2000: they should enable the département funds to assess the impact of the main job incentives. The Department also keeps track, on a continuing basis, of rural recipients of the minimum guaranteed income allowance (Revenu Minimum d Insertion: RMI). 1. The Agripanel survey was launched in 1992 on a panel of 6,000 holdings. A second wave was carried out in The New Farmers register covers all years from Data are tabulated at the national, département, and canton levels. 3. Year-n data loading entails the removal of year n-10 data. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

46 Anne-Laure Zennou Healthcare, pensions, and families The data on healthcare expenditures by contributors to the agricultural social-insurance system are gathered in the Ecosiprem base. The information is used to produce detailed statistics on (1) benefits paid, (2) healthcare consumers in the agricultural sector, and (3) practitioners serving the farming community (classified by specialty, fee levels, etc.). Ecosiprem is also a starting point for many analytical studies on healthcare consumption and expenditures, covering such issues as statistical trends, geographical disparities, and so on. The studies on old-age pensions cover the present population of retirees and the overall demographic trends of the farming population. The studies on families rely on detailed analysis and monitoring of (1) benefits paid out by the family-benefits fund (including basic family allowances, housing allowances, and benefits for children with disabilities) and (2) characteristics of benefit recipients. There are specific studies on family demographics, in particular the changes in the birth rate of the farming population. The Department naturally prepares short-, medium-, and long-term forecasts on all categories of benefits paid out by MSA, i.e., healthcare, old-age pensions, and family. Among the more important exercises are 5- and 20-year forecasts for pensions. MSA : both manager and active player Through its economic and social data-gathering and analysis, MSA has substantially intensified its information flows with its partners: central and local government bodies, other social-protection agencies, farming-industry organizations, training organizations, and others. Indeed, MSA has joined SCEES (the Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries) and INSEE as one of the leading producers and disseminators of agricultural data. In so doing, MSA strengthens its dual role as manager of the social-protection system for the farming sector, and key player in French agriculture and the French rural community. Anne-Laure Zennou Statistics Department Caisse Centrale de Mutualité Sociale Agricole 48

47 The French agriculture accounts Thanks to the spirit of order and frugality inherent in the French peasantry, a large part of its income and a notable proportion of its wages are converted into savings thereby constituting, for France, those valuable resources that are one of the surest guarantees of its creditworthiness and power. 1 A brief history of the agriculture accounts From 1882 to World War I, the results of the ten-year agricultural surveys were published along with overall balance sheets in cash terms. These gave a detailed breakdown of gross receipts for each category of agricultural output, expenses (from which one could determine net income), and capital values (for land and other assets). These statistical compilations resumed after World War II. In his doctoral dissertation defended in 1946, Joseph Klatzmann defined final output, gross income, expenses, and net income for the agriculture sector. He offered estimates for the period and the farming year. Using a macroeconomic approach, Klatzmann determined agriculture-income indicators for farm operators, hired farm workers, and landlords. These statistical exercises diverged from standard national-accounting principles by adopting a cash-flow approach and using the farming year (September n - August n+1) as the time unit. In later years, INSEE continued to develop a national agriculture account by progressively modernizing the concepts and sources. In particular, comparisons with data from other industries were facilitated by the convergence with the concepts being simultaneously elaborated for the central framework of national accounts. Agriculture was also defined more strictly, excluding forestry, logging, and winemaking cooperatives. But the agricultural institutions were not entirely happy with the standardized description of agriculture provided by the central national-accounts framework from 1960 on. In 1976, statisticians added an ad hoc account to the agriculture account in the base-1971 central framework. This ad hoc construction developed under an agriculture-specific method is still in use. However, the base-1995 accounts, for which the initial estimates were published in 1999, formalizes a clearcut convergence on many issues between the central framework and the special agriculture account. At a very early stage, statisticians introduced specific procedures to supplement the national agriculture account, for the purpose of analyzing income disparities by farm or region. Most notably, in 1952, Klatzmann drew up a ranking of farms by economic size. His method consisted in determining and applying intensity coefficients to the valuation of structural data. Similar exercises were performed from time to time by the Agriculture Ministry s Central Office for Statistical Surveys and Studies (Service Central des Enquêtes et Études Statistiques: SCEES), in the 1960s and after the 1970 agriculture census. The Laspeyres index of the average G.O.I. per L.K.A.U., for all O.T.E.Xs in the aggregate, clearly shows a more favorable trend than the real margin on a 5-year sliding average, but... For 1951 and the farming year, INSEE compiled agriculture accounts for each département (territorial unit) using a method adapted from the national accounts. In 1960, while INSEE was busy developing regional accounts, the Agriculture Ministry s local directorates in certain départements started preparing current-year income estimates on their own initiative. SCEES thus involved itself in coordination and methodology work. The compilation of Drawing by Anne-Sophie Louault 1. Commentaires des comptes de 1882 (Comments on the 1882 accounts), in Introduction à l enquête décennale de 1882 (Introduction to the 1882 Ten-Year Survey). Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

48 M. Demotes-Mainard, M. Desriers, and L Pollina International standards for agriculture accounts The European Community has been publishing economic accounts for agriculture (EAAs) since But full conceptual harmonization between the six member States was not achieved until 1969, with the decision to adopt the ESA as the consistent reference. The working papers were collected and systematized in a manual of economic accounts for agriculture (and forestry), the first edition of which appeared in The manual was recently revised to reflect the changes introduced in the 1995 ESA. The member States pledged to provide estimates under the new system starting in The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has, until now, followed the Eurostat standards of agriculture accounts. It is now examining the amendments that need to be introduced in the wake of the System of National Accounts (SNA) revision. The European manual serves as the starting-point, but the OECD may not adopt it in full. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) uses a system of its own. In 1956, the FAO prepared a methodological document for European countries strongly inspired by the SNA version in force at the time. The first edition of the FAO manual appeared in 1974, and a revised version of the System of economic accounts for agriculture and the food industry was published in 1996 to incorporate the changes in the 1993 SNA. In many respects, the FAO system of agriculture accounts covers a broader field than that of the French special accounts described here: - In addition to agriculture proper, it covers all forestry and fishing activities, as well as selected upstream and downstream activities. - It supplements the industry account with (1) analyses of product markets (in the form of supply balance sheets and supply-and-use tables) and (2) accounts for institutional sectors. In particular, it provides a separate account for farm households and recommends the construction of a sequence of accounts for them, up to the primary distribution-of-income account. département accounts soon became a general practice: publication of final agricultural output figures began in 1964, and full accounts were issued from 1967 on (with a backward extrapolation to 1962 by Jean Ousset). Until 1975, the département agricultural statistics offices (Services Départementaux de Statistique Agricole: SDSAs) estimated output value, while SCEES estimated département expenses. Since that year, the entire accounts have been compiled locally, then adjusted to the national account. Another way to examine the diversity of French agriculture is to decompose it by type of activity. In the early 1970s, SCEES began to develop accounts by technical and economic-activity specialization (Comptes par Orientation Technico-économique: OTEX). Unlike the département accounts, the OTEX accounts are not arrived at through independent computation procedures, but by breaking down each heading of the national accounts. At present, there is a division of labor between INSEE and SCEES for the agricultural accounts. The INSEE Agriculture Division is responsible for the national account; SCEES prepares the OTEX accounts and coordinates the preparation of the département accounts by the SDSAs. The national account The compilation of the agriculture accounts relies on an extremely abundant set of statistical data specific to the agricultural sector. They include: detailed quantity and price data on output from the agricultural joint-trade offices (Offices Inter-Professionnels, ex. for milk and grain) and SCEES surveys; accounting data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN); data from Crédit Agricole (bank) and Mutualité Sociale Agricole (mutual insurance institution) for estimating interest expenses and social contributions; detailed information on public subsidies; and a steady stream of information on farm structures. The abundance of these inputs justifies the level of detail of the national-accounts series for output (36 headings published), intermediate consumption, and subsidies; the national account can also be decomposed by département and by specialty (OTEX). The agricultural activity tracked by the account encompasses commercial crop-growing and livestock breeding, as well as related agricultural services. In institutional terms, the scope therefore comprises agricultural holdings (including their secondary non-farm activities), farm-labor enterprises (Entreprises de Travaux Agricoles: ETAs), and machinery-pooling cooperatives (Coopératives d Utilisation du Matériel en Commun: CUMAs). The special agriculture account is presented as an enlarged industry account, including a production account, generation-of-income account, and entrepreneurial income account. This sequence is augmented by consistent estimates of labor and gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), plus an estimate of investment subsidies and other capital transfers received. 50

49 The French agriculture accounts The agriculture account thus offers a uses-and-resources table of the agriculture industry, reports the main standard national-account balances, and provides the figures needed to analyze the production process. In formal terms, the special-account framework is rigorously consistent with the 1995 European System of Integrated Economic Accounts (ESA). Its main differences with the central framework concern the scope of coverage. Département accounts: independent, adjusted estimates The département accounts are compiled by the local département statistician, who draws on his/her own sources or on harmonized département data gathered by SCEES. Since the 1995 rebasing, the scope and framework of the département accounts are identical with those of the national accounts. In the earlier bases, the accounting framework of the département accounts was slightly simplified, and the scope of coverage excluded agricultural activities performed outside holdings (for example, in the farm-labor enterprises [ETAs] and cooperatives [CUMAs] mentioned above). The 1995 rebasing was an opportunity to change the procedures for compiling and coordinating the département accounts. The following arrangements have come into effect since the last round of accounts preparation: - Département statisticians prepare a decentralized estimate of the output of wine, fruit and vegetables, flowers, and plants. The combined département estimates constitute the national-accounts estimate adopted by INSEE. This method is thought to be the most satisfactory for such products, given their highly specific local character. - For all other headings, INSEE and agricultural statisticians are working in parallel, comparing their estimates before closing the accounts. The goal is to arrive at identical national estimates for each heading with both approaches. The département data may prove incomplete or insufficiently precise (notably for measuring animal output) and need to be checked against the national estimation framework. The methods and estimates are the subject of close coordination between statisticians in each region, ahead of the final decisions at national level. The goal of this new arrangement is to avoid an overly arbitrary adjustment of the département figures to a national account partly compiled on an independent basis. In exchange, local statisticians will have to comply strictly with the schedules for preparing the département accounts. OTEX accounts: a systematic breakdown Beyond the regional differences, it is interesting to examine the agriculture accounts for the main production systems. Each is governed by fairly distinct sets of determinants, and this variety was a factor in the decision to compile the accounts by technical-economic specialization (OTEXs). The same principle has guided the construction of the OTEX accounts ever since their introduction in the 1970s: the use of breakdown coefficients to decompose the national accounts. The successive changes in the OTEX accounts have focused on the method for calculating coefficients in base-year and current-year terms. The aim has been to obtain plausible estimates with an instrument whose ease of application makes it suitable for forecasting and simulation. Most coefficients are based on physical indicators derived from the two-year surveys on farm structure. The indicators are adjusted with monetary coefficients taken from the FADN, after the data have been checked and when necessary smoothed. By definition, the breakdown can only apply to the agricultural activity performed by agricultural holdings (exploitations agricoles) as defined by the agricultural statistics system. This excludes the farm-labor enterprises (ETAs) and cooperatives (CUMAs) discussed earlier. The OTEX disaggregation also excludes holdings in the overseas départements (DOMs): their characteristics diverge so sharply from those of holdings in metropolitan France (mainland + Corsica) that their inclusion would not make sense. The annual breakdown coefficients are therefore applied, for each category of activity, to variables extracted from the national account, after adjusting the scope of coverage to exclude (1) the overseas départements (DOMs) and (2) farm-labor enterprises and machinery-pooling cooperatives. In the breakdown, we begin by setting aside the aggregate of small holdings referred to as non-commercial holdings in the FADN terminology, i.e., units of less than 12 hectares of wheat-equivalent and employing fewer than 0.75 full-time equivalent workers. These small units represent almost 40% of all French farms in numerical terms, but contribute less than 5% of value added. The OTEX breakdown proper, applied to some one hundred headings, thus concerns commercial holdings only. In other words, the OTEX disaggregation is guided by a substantially different approach from the one implemented in the département accounts. Despite the self-imposed obligation of full adjustment to the national account, the département accounts incorporate local information and expertise, which complement the resources available at the central level. By contrast, the OTEX Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

50 M. Demotes-Mainard, M. Desriers, and L Pollina accounts are compiled not by means of independent methods, but by applying an interpretative framework to the national figures. The framework is defined to reflect continuing structural changes. This breakdown process places a methodological limitation on the OTEX accounts, but guarantees their robustness. Interconnections with the central framework The latest rebasing of the national accounts provided an opportunity to redefine the interconnections between the special agriculture account and the central framework of the national accounts. In terms of timing, the account compilations are simultaneous, starting with the preliminary version (published in spring of year n+1) and following the same revision schedule up to the final account. The assessments in both frameworks are carried out in parallel by the INSEE Agriculture Division. In the preparation of the central framework, the estimates on agriculture largely concern exogenous variables that are not adjusted at the finalization stage. There are some valuation differences between the special account and the central framework. French agricultural statisticians have chosen to follow the revised methodology of the European economic accounts for agriculture (EAA). This document, in turn, is very closely modeled on the 1995 European System of Accounts (ESA95), but diverges from it on some points. With respect to the ad hoc account of the previous base-year system, the new special agriculture account differs from the central framework in the scope of coverage, but converges toward it in conceptual terms, notably by emphasizing the production perspective. In the French base-1995 system, there are three main differences between the special agriculture account and the central framework s agriculture account: 1. In the central framework, the agriculture industry is defined in strict compliance with the French classification of economic activities (Nomenclature d Activités Française: NAF), whereas the special agriculture account uses a slightly different list of characteristic activities: - In the agriculture account, only the production of multiplied seeds is regarded as a specific activity; this definition excludes (a) the development of prototypes upstream and (b) packaging and marketing downstream. Structure of the French agriculture accounts Uses Resources Intermediate consumption Production excluding subsidies + Subsidies on products = Production at basic prices Fixed capital consumption Other taxes on production Gross wages and salaries Employers social contributions Interest expenses Net rent expenses Gross value added Net value added Agricultural business income Net mixed income Net agricultural entrepreneurial income Other subsidies on production - Landscape conservation, included in the NAF definition of agriculture, is excluded from the special account. - By contrast, the production of Christmas trees, classified under forestry in the NAF, is included in the special account. 2. The production of kitchen gardens and family livestock-breeding is included in the central framework, which aims at a comprehensive description. It is excluded from the special account, which focuses on market activities. 3. There are differences in the treatment of secondary activities of holdings. In the special account, the basic unit defining the agriculture industry is the local kind of activity unit (LKAU). As a result, secondary non-agricultural activities of holdings are included if they cannot be isolated from the holding s principal activities. The choice of the LKAU is all the more justified as the statistical sources particularly the FADN sources on expenses are largely focused on the total holding as an 52

51 The French agriculture accounts observation unit. In the French central framework, the absence of statistical data on all industries has led to the decision to compile symmetrical supply-and-use tables only, hence to construct pure homogeneous industries. The National Agriculture Accounts Commission (CCAN) In 1964, France set up a National Agriculture Accounts Commission (Commission des Comptes de l Agriculture de la Nation: CCAN) reporting to the Commission on the National Economic Accounts and Budgets (Commission des Comptes et des Budgets Économiques de la Nation: CCBEN). The CCAN was the third such body to be established, after the Transportation Accounts Commission and the Wholesale/Retail Trade Accounts Commission. The CCAN is a forum for exchanges between government and agriculture-industry trade organizations and labor unions. Its tasks are twofold: (1) to review the national-accounting procedures applied to agriculture; (2) to offer methodological advice for compiling the accounts, improving them, and collecting the statistical data needed for agricultural policy-making. The preamble to the decree establishing the commission spells out the needs that were perceived at the time. The first was to supplement the analysis of production with statistics on investment and investment financing. The second was to describe the diversity of French agriculture in order to target public policy initiatives more effectively. The CCAN meets twice a year. In December, it reviews the projection for the current-year account; in May, it reviews the preliminary account of the previous year and the revisions for earlier years. Since 1996, it has broadened its agenda to cover issues other than the examination of the agriculture accounts. In particular, the fall session now includes a presentation of FADN microeconomic findings. A working party of government experts and industry representatives convenes before the Commission meetings. The group holds in-depth discussions on estimation methods and quantitative results. Cooperation between INSEE and SCEES One of the original features of the agriculture accounts is the intensive cooperation between the two organizations that prepare them. In formal terms, INSEE s Agriculture Division is in charge of the national account and its linkage to the central framework; SCEES is responsible for the specialty (OTEX) accounts and for coordinating and adjusting the département accounts. In practice, the two agencies activities are even more intertwined. For its national account, INSEE relies mainly on information from SCEES surveys and other data collected by the Agriculture Ministry (in particular on subsidies). Reciprocally, SCEES uses INSEE figures to benchmark its own series. The regional and département agricultural statistics offices (SRSAs and SDSAs) contribute crucial expertise to the entire operation, given the diversity of products and climate conditions across France. These collaborative working arrangements are reflected in the executive of the CCAN itself: its rapporteur is the head of the INSEE Agriculture Division, and its secretary is the SCEES deputy director for statistical summaries and income statistics. The necessary coordination between two teams reporting to two different government departments inevitably entails a cost. But only such teamwork can generate a statistical output of sufficiently high quality to ensure (1) a linkage with the central framework of the national accounts, and (2) the resulting breakdown, at a fairly detailed level, by geographic area and by production system. Current-year account projection Since 1975, INSEE prepares a projection of the agriculture account for the current year in late fall. This exercise was introduced at the request of agriculture trade organizations in order to consolidate the estimates prepared independently by various entities. INSEE compiles the national agriculture-account projection using very similar methods to those employed for the preliminary national account. The scenarios anticipate the annual indicators depending on the information available. Experience shows that the broad trends are generally well described in the projection: the weak spots are the valuation of the fruit and vegetable crop-year output, and the animal-population estimates. SCEES then prepares an account for each specialty (OTEX) by breaking down the national account: the disaggregation coefficients are weighted by actual structural trends. Projections for the département accounts are not prepared on a systematic basis, but some are compiled locally, for the most part to meet the in-house requirements of the Ministry s département Directorates for Agriculture and Forestry (DDAFs). The current-year projection is forwarded to Eurostat, which publishes before Christmas the initial indicators of agricultural income for each member State and the entire European Union (EU). An update is transmitted in late January and included in Eurostat s fuller report on agricultural income. The agriculture account as a benchmark The agriculture account (and in particular the agricultural-income indicator derived from it) is a widely reported benchmark for assessing the economic results of the farming year. By comparison with its potential rivals, it offers the following advantages: Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

52 M. Demotes-Mainard, M. Desriers, and L Pollina From production to value added* 1998/97 change Volume Price Value 1998 value Production excluding subsidies a Subsidies on products b Production at basic prices c = a + b of which: production of crop output grain fruit and vegetables industrial plants wine other crops of which: production of animal output hogs other livestock poultry products other animal output of which: production of services Intermediate consumption (excluding deductible VAT) Gross value added Net value added *Values in FRF billion; changes in %. Source: INSEE 1. Industrial beets, oilseeds, tobacco, and other industrial plants 2. Fodder plants, ornamental plants and flowers 3. Adult cattle, calves, sheep and goats, horses, donkeys, and mules 4. Fowl and eggs 5. Milk and dairy products; other livestock products 6. Principal activities in the farm-labor category; secondary activities in services 7. At basic prices 8. At basic prices, minus fixed capital consumption - It is more detailed, more comprehensive, and better suited in its layout to the requirements of agriculture specialists than the central-framework data. - It is available sooner than the FADN results, and presented using apparently simpler concepts (in fact, these concepts are more familiar to users). At the national level, the special account is the basic input for discussions in the CCAN. This makes it the common information benchmark for decision-makers and participants in the agricultural economy. The need for a consensus benchmark is also tangibly expressed, albeit with varying degrees of intensity, at the département level. In the past, French authorities used the agriculture accounts as a fairly explicit basis for some of their initiatives: examples include the subsidies granted in 1974 to offset the price rises due to the oil shock, and the income compensation handed out after the 1976 drought and again in This practice at the national level has since become less common. The authorities now tend to take a more closely focused view of the entire set of data on a given issue. Admittedly, the financial aid distributed after the mad-cow crisis was compared with an estimate of the foreseeable income loss for cattle-breeders. However, it would be inaccurate to say that the exact total value of the support package was determined by a formal modeling of the impact of the crisis on the agriculture account. The fact remains that the overall calculation of general measures such as compensation for price cuts due to Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform is based on macroeconomic analyses in which the agriculture accounts play a key role. Today, estimates of agricultural income by département and by specialty are used for two main institutional purposes: (1) calculating the farm-rent index and (2) defining a criterion for farm start-up subsidies. Under a 1995 reform, farm-rent prices are linked to a département index based on the département agriculture accounts. The 54

53 The French agriculture accounts From value added to agricultural income* 1997 value 1998/97 change 1998 value Net value added a Other subsidies on production b Other taxes on production c of which: property taxes Total agricultural business income d = a + b + c Compensation of employees e Interest expenses f Net rent expenses g Total agricultural entrepreneurial income h = d - e - f - g /97 change in agricultural business income and agricultural entrepreneurial income* Total agricultural business income +1.3 Total agricultural business income, real +0.4 Agricultural income per economically active person, real +3.0 Total agricultural entrepreneurial income +0.0 Total agricultural entrepreneurial income, real -0.9 Agricultural entrepreneurial income per non-payroll worker, real +2.9 Change in GDP deflator +0.9 Change in total annual work units (AWUs) -2.5 Change in AWUs for non-payroll workers -3.7 *Values in FRF billion; changes in %. Source: INSEE département joint committees on rural leases have defined the département index of farm rents as a combination of the changes (smoothed over five years) in the income per hectare as reported in (1) the national account (with a weighting equal to at least 25% of the total), (2) in the département account, and/or (3) in the accounts of the region s main specialties (OTEXs). The index can also include the movements in the prices of commodities not covered by compensatory allowances. To qualify for farm start-up subsidies, young farmers must fulfill a minimum income requirement. Applicants are asked to submit a business plan that will generate a specified income at a three-year (or, in some cases, six-year) horizon. The projected current income before taxes per economically active person on the farm must exceed an annually defined département floor. This minimum value is linked to either (1) the average non-farm wage (the national reference income), or (2) the three-year average gross operating income per capita calculated directly from the département account. Lastly, some aggregates of the département account are used from time to time as disaggregation coefficients to calculate one-time aid packages. Measuring agricultural income The compilation of the agriculture accounts in their various forms has been consistently guided by the objective of analyzing the generation of income from agricultural activity. Indeed, the measurement of farmers income was one of the explicit goals of the national and EEC legislation that lay the groundwork for the Common Agricultural Policy in the early 1960s. The August 1960 guideline act (loi d orientation) on agricultural policy stressed the notion of economic parity between farmers and other categories of the labor force. This concept of parity, which is difficult to define, was taken to mean that there should be a parallel growth of income in the occupational categories. Subsequently, France s fifth economic development plan ( ) was the first to set programming targets in nominal (i.e., value) terms. The document quantified the income catch-up needed to compensate for what was regarded as an inadequate growth in farmers income in the preceding five-year period. The authorities were therefore intent on contributing to the social debate on agricultural income. Courrier des statistiques, English series no. 5,

54 M. Demotes-Mainard, M. Desriers and L Pollina activity; the task of analyzing the income of farming households is left to others. Consequently: - The final balance of the agriculture account is a form of entrepreneurial income as defined by the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA); in particular, it excludes social transfers and transfers related to accident-insurance transactions. Photograph courtesy of Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries There was a problem, however: in the early 1960s, the microeconomic information taken from private agricultural accounting records was virtually non-existent in France unlike most EC member States in northern Europe. On the other hand, France did have a long experience of compiling national agriculture accounts. This explains why national accountants have been asked to provide the reference statistics for agricultural-income levels and growth rates. Admittedly, since the early 1980s and thanks to the enlargement of its sample, the FADN has been supplying high-quality microeconomic information, which is playing an ever greater role in the preparation of the agriculture accounts. But the availability of this source does not lessen the value of a macroeconomic analytical framework. The ad hoc agriculture account of the 1971-base and 1980-base national accounts was therefore designed to produce the most accurate possible estimate of the income generated by farm operators to support their families and finance their investments. For this purpose, the ad hoc account introduced a special concept of income known as gross agricultural income (revenu brut agricole: RBA), defined as the gross operating surplus of the agriculture industry plus transfers that were regarded as being directly related to farming activity: interest expenses, rents, social contributions, benefits received by persons employed in agriculture, and accident-insurance net premiums and claims. Individual income was then calculated by dividing total gross agricultural income by the number of holdings. Indeed, the ad hoc account was rooted in a concept of agriculture as an activity performed by family enterprises almost exclusively engaged in farming production. True, a large proportion of French agriculture still consists of small independent units. But there are two phenomena that can no longer be ignored: the expansion of corporate forms of agricultural activity, and the growth of non-agricultural activities carried out by farming households or by farm operators themselves. These developments loosen the ties between the holding and the households of those who work there; as a result, it has become necessary to specify the exact content of the income measured. Without disrupting the structure of the earlier account, the specific agriculture account of the base-1995 national accounts is more sharply focused on the goal of tracking income generated by agricultural - Value added at factor cost (referred to as agricultural business income [résultat agricole]) also serves as an overall income indicator. This makes it possible to neutralize the variable share of corporate-unit income for purposes of historical, geographic, or activity comparisons. - The deflators used to measure individual income have been changed from the number of holdings to the volume of full-time-equivalent labor (total labor for gross value added at factor cost; non-payroll labor for entrepreneurial income). These developments make it clearer that agricultural income as measured in the agriculture accounts consists solely of income generated by an economic activity, and cannot be treated as a form of household income. At the same time, the agriculture account relinquishes in a manner of speaking the higher goal of achieving a convergence between economic analysis and social analysis. The agriculture accounts as an analytical instrument: an approach worth pursuing Thanks to their structure and relatively detailed format, the national, département, and specialty (OTEX) accounts are suitable for forecasting and simulation exercises. To begin with, there is the current-year projection account, compiled along very similar lines to a preliminary national account. In addition, SCEES routinely conducts in-house preliminary exercises on the current year in order to quantify 56