Statistical processing

Source data

The prices of agricultural sales and purchases of goods are mainly collected on a monthly and quarterly basis and are mainly based on reports from companies dealing with the producers of primary agriculture, eg. feed dealers. In addition, among other things, information from industry organizations, public authorities and listings for agriculture-specific matters.

As a price basis for various costs including energy, maintenance, services and investment goods are obtained from data from Statistics Denmark's general price statistics. Information on slaughter and export of live animals, milk weighed in on dairies, eggs weighed in on egg packaging come from administrative records.

More information can be found in the statistics documentation Slaughter animals and meat production, Milk and dairy products, Egg production. More detailed information can be found in the glossary on the final pages of Agriculture's Price Relationship.

Frequency of data collection

Data is collected weekly, monthly, and quarterly. There are some collections on an annual basis, such as for nursery plants, herbs, wages, and land prices.

Data collection

The data received comes from web questionnaires upload solution and data registers and quotations.

Data validation

The incoming data is kept against historical data and current knowledge collected in the field of professional journals so that unrealistic changes in prices are detected.

Data compilation

Average national prices and indexed figures (both the overall index and sub-indices) are published for agricultural prices. These figures undergo error checking at both the microdata level, e.g. CVR (Central Business Register) level, and the macrodata level, e.g. when calculating average national prices based on individual prices at the CVR level.

The indexed figures (price indices) are weighted using the annual values for individual commodities in the Economic Accounts for Agriculture, with 2020 as the base year. In addition, monthly and quarterly weighting is applied, based on an individual assessment of the volume of sales for each month throughout 2020. These assessments form the basis for the weighting of individual commodities.

If sales within a commodity group change significantly, the weighting may introduce some bias in the representation of the actual importance of individual commodities, thereby distorting the picture of the real-world situation. This is unavoidable, but the issue is closely monitored, and efforts are made to minimise such distortions within the framework of the data collection and weighting system.

Furthermore, the scope of the indices is revised whenever the base year is changed every five years, at which point all weights and the composition of commodity groups are reassessed.

The starting point for weighting when calculating total and sub-indices for sales products and consumption in production are the individual product values in the calculation of Economic Accounts for Agriculture and correspondingly in the EU's Economic Accounts for Agriculture. These inventories are based on quantity price and value information from a number of sources.

The emphasis is on farmers' sales and purchases during the base year (reference period) including trade between agricultural holdings. Estimated internal turnover on agricultural holdings is included in the calculation of the indices published by elucidation of agricultural gross factor income. For investment indices, values for agricultural investment are used in the base year. However, subdivision of inventory has been estimated using other sources.

When calculating monthly indices of sales and consumption in production, it is taken into account that the purchase and sale of some products, eg cereals, fruits and vegetables, is seasonal. Where there is no or only insignificant difference in turnover months in between, the weight for the month for the product is 1/12 of the annual weight. For products with great variation throughout the year, the annual weight is distributed based on the base year's turnover of the 12 months, possibly. however, quarterly or semi-annually, depending on available information and materiality.

For indexes where prices for several individual products index an item (for example, prices for several types of cattle are included in a total price for cattle), the weighting is done by dividing the weight basis of the product into value for individual products. In some cases, information is found for the full product range, in other cases less significant products are represented through others.

Annual indexes are formed on the basis of the data that is considered to be the most accurate. Where data and volume information for the year are available from data suppliers, such data are used. In other cases, the monthly indices weighted with the monthly weights are used to calculate the annual index. When calculating partial and total indices on an annual basis, and then weighted into aggregate indices on an annual basis.

Adjustment

No corrections are made, however, weighted prices according to season's importance.