Initial situation
At the beginning of 2016, responsibility for compiling the agricultural price indices (EU and national) was transferred to the Austrian Federal Statistical Office and the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics and Mountain Farming.
The Austrian Federal Statistical Office is responsible for calculating all EU and national indices (output and input) and for transmitting data to the Statistical Office of the European Union (EUROSTAT). With the agricultural and forestry producer prices, it also provides the essential basic data for calculating the agricultural price indices for output according to national and EU definitions. The Austrian Federal Statistical Office provides the coarse weighting for output and input as well as the fine weighting for output when compiling the weighting scheme on which the agricultural price indices are based.
The Federal Institute for Agriculture and Mountain Farming is responsible for the collection and provision of input data for which no existing statistics or administrative data are available and which therefore have to be collected for the purposes of the agricultural price indices. Furthermore, the information on public funds is based on calculations by the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics and Rural Studies. In the course of the rebasing carried out at five-year intervals to date, the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics and Rural Studies is also responsible for drawing up the weighting scheme for the detailed items on the input side (fine weighting). It is also the central point of contact for information in the context of national inquiries.
Objective
The national indices have a broader scope of observation than the EU agricultural price indices.The latter focus exclusively on agricultural products, while the national agricultural price indices also take forestry products and public funds into account.The agricultural price indices are calculated according to the Laspeyres formula, according to which the weighting scheme from the base year remains unchanged until the indices are converted to a new base year.The current base year is 2020.
By linking the calculation results on the current basis (2010=100) with earlier index figures, longer time series can be created and thus longer-term comparisons and calculations can be made.
Monthly, quarterly and annual indices are calculated. However, due to the seasonal weighting, the monthly and quarterly indices can only be compared with the corresponding months/quarters of previous years.
Status of the project
By the end of 2023, the basket of goods for the agricultural price index was rebased to the base year 2020 (API 2020) in cooperation with Statistics Austria.In the course of this, the surveys of the relevant input data of the new commodity basket were designed and implemented. The input data has been collected monthly since the Ukraine crisis and transmitted to Statistics Austria.In 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, the input data was still collected quarterly.
Work in 2024
Implementation of the new API 2020
Monthly collection of input data and transmission to Statistics Austria
Schedule
Long-term project with project start at the beginning of 2016 (2016 and 2017 part of the AWI/25/05 W project).
