The move to modernise farm statistics and figures

A move to modernise farm surveys and the reporting of agricultural data has left some gaps in data collection, as the transition slowly rolls out.

Gaps are appearing in farm data as federal agencies move to new methods in gathering and reporting agricultural statistics.

The changes has prompted concern commodity groups won’t have the same access, coverage or standardisation of crucial farming information.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has ceased its large agricultural surveys in recent years, including the annual the annual Rural Environment and Agricultural Commodities survey, and the five-yearly Agricultural Census.

The ABS will instead use existing data from government, industry, and commercial sources to provide official agricultural statistics from the 2022-23 financial year onwards.

ABS head of agriculture Rob Walter said while the response to changes has been “generally positive”, both the ABS and ABARES were working to publish the full set of statistics previously published as part of the agricultural census.

“Now we’re using alternative existing data to reduce farmers’ reporting burden and give higher quality, faster, and more detailed statistics,” Mr Walter said.

“The ABS and ABARES will soon publicly address how we plan to address remaining gaps in the data. We are also working with the broader agricultural industry to understand their needs and plan how we address these, with more information to come in late October.”

It is understood while not all statistics have been published in the first year of incremental changes, some people have raised concerns about gaps in data during this transition.

National Farmers Federation president David Jochinke. Picture: Martin Ollman

National Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said quality agricultural data was critical both to industry and policy makers.

He said while industry groups had varying capacity to collect data, they would “be unlikely to replicate the coverage and standardisation of data collection capacity of the ABS and ABARES”.

The NFF acknowledged challenges the ABS faced in gathering data, Mr Jochinke said, with the opportunity to modernise presenting “new, often technology-enabled collection methods to obtain quality industry data”.

Mr Walter said the agriculture industry was “very aware of how much our old ways of collective this data inconvenienced farmers”, including surveys.

“People have also appreciated the greater coherence between the new agriculture statistics and the wide range of existing data that is being used in agriculture today,” Mr Walter said.

“This coherence gives people greater trust in our statistics, which in turn is important when making decisions.”