Crop statistics refer to the following types of annual data:
area, production harvested and yield for cereals and for other main field crops (mainly dried pulses, root crops, fodder and industrial crops);
area, production harvested and yield for a large number of fruits and vegetables and
agricultural land use.
The statistics provide, for a given product, the area, the yield and the production harvested during the crop year at national level. For some products regional figures (NUTS 1 or 2) are available too. The data refer to areas under cultivation (expressed in 1 000 hectares), the quantity harvested (expressed in 1 000 tonnes) and the yield (expressed in 100kg/ha). The information concerns more than 100 crop products.
The earliest data are available from 1955 for cereals and from the early 1960's for fruits and vegetables. However most Member States have started to send in data in the 1970's and 1980's. The statistical system has progressively improved and enlarged. The current Regulation (EC) No 543/2009 entered into force in January 2010. It simplified the data collection and reduced the number of crop sub-classes. At present Eurostat receives and publishes harmonised statistical data from 27 Member States broken down in:
17 categories and subcategories for cereals;
30 categories and subcategories for other main crops (mainly Dried pulses, Root crops and Industrial crops);
40 categories and subcategories for vegetables;
41 categories and subcategories for fruits;
18 categories and subcategories for UAA (Utilised Agricultural Area).
For the full list of crops, please consult Annex 1 .
Some data are available also for Croatia, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Turkey as well.
Some additional crops are covered by gentlemen's agreements. These data is provided on voluntary basis by the Member States. The list of crops collected under the gentlemen's agreements is included in Annex 1.
National Statistical Institutes or Ministries of Agriculture are responsible for the national data collection in accordance with EC Regulations. Eurostat is responsible for drawing the EU aggregations.
Regional metadata
Please note that for paragraphs where no metadata for regional data has been specified the regional metadata is identical to the metadata for the national data.