Glossary:Location of the farm
The location of the farm is the place where the farm undertakes its main agricultural activity.
The location of land (or livestock) of a farm in different regions is not a criterion for splitting one holding into several ones. The data regarding such holdings is not split by region, and a single agricultural holding has a single location placed in one region.
For the purposes of Integrated Farm Statistics, the geographical location of a holding is established according to the following criteria, in order of preference:
1. The location of the main agricultural building. For livestock-specialist holdings it should be where the livestock is located. For crop-specialist holdings and mixed-farming holdings it should be the main building of the holding which is usually located close to the agricultural activities.
2. If there is no agricultural building to which a location of the holding could be attributed:
- a. The location of the majority of the area of the holding
- b. The location of the most important parcel chosen by physical size
- c. The location of the most important parcel chosen by economic size
3. The location of the farmer's residence if it is not further than 5 km straight from the farm
The location may also be a combination of the above referred criteria, none of the above criteria, or it may be that the criteria are not applicable (e.g. only one NUTS3 region in the country).
When collecting data for the purposes of Integrated Farm Statistics, the geographical location of a farm is defined as a point, a set of coordinates. In short, there is a record with the X, Y coordinates of a location, along with a unique identifier (ID), which are linked to a record with statistical data which belongs to this point. The process of linking coordinates, identifier and data is called point-based “geocoding” of statistics. The purpose of using point-based geocoding (rather than area-based geocoding) is to assign a single coordinate location to each statistical unit about which data is collected.
Defining the geographical location of a farm as a point rather than an area does present certain challenges. Since an agricultural holding is spread over an area, the simple use of address or building locations risks the production of a non-appropriate spatial representation. For example, agricultural holdings may be inappropriately geocoded by using address information when the address location refers to the dwelling of the farmer, rather than to the farm site of the holding. Typically, the farm site and the place of residence of the farmer coincide, but in case the farm site is very different from the residence of the farmer, address geocoding of the agricultural holding may produce different results. Another issue is that all area features, such as the agricultural land belonging to the holding, will be linked to a single point location which will be assigned to a single 1km2 grid cell. The precise location of the land parcels of the farm is not collected.
