Farm Financial Survey (FFS)

Detailed information for 2015

The Farm Financial Survey, an initiative by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Statistics Canada, provides data on farm assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, capital investments and capital sales.

Data release - February 21, 2017

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The Farm Financial Survey provides data on farm assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, capital investments and capital sales. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada uses the data to examine the effects of agriculture programs and policies on different types of farm operations by province. Farm Financial Survey (FRFN) data contribute some measures of assets and liabilities to programs within Statistics Canada.

Reference period: Calendar year

Collection period: May-August

Subjects

• Agriculture and food (formerly Agriculture)
• Farm financial statistics

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population for the survey consists of all Canadian agriculture operations that are active at the end of the reference year. Specific farms are excluded from the target population, such as farms with less than $25,000 in sales from agricultural activities; institutional farms; community pastures; farms on First Nations reserves; and farms that are part of multi-holding companies.

Instrument design

The original development of the survey questionnaire was based on agricultural financial balance sheet and income statement concepts, and it was pilot tested. There have been few changes to these core items.

Team members observe training and collection and provide observation reports. Interviewers and collection managers participate in a telephone debriefing, and also provide answers to a set of written debriefing questions. All comments are considered in the following development cycle.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

Using a list of all the farms from the Business Register, an establishment is assigned to a stratum by province, by farm type and by farm size. The size stratum is determined by the revenues and the assets of the establishment. The sampling unit is the establishment.

A simple random sampling is selected in each stratum. The sample is allocated to different strata using statistical methods to optimize the precision of the resulting estimates.

The initial sample is slightly modified because sample coordination is performed with other agricultural surveys when their collection period overlaps with the Farm Financial Survey. The overlapping units are replaced, as much as possible, by other units of the population.

The sample size is about 10,000 farms.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2016-06-27 to 2016-08-08

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and extracted from administrative files.

The survey information is collected by telephone interview in Statistics Canada regional offices, using a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) application. Questionnaires are mailed to the farm operation a few weeks prior to collection for reference during the interview.

In an effort to reduce the response burden on farmers, Statistics Canada used data from the Canada Revenue Agency, to replace the following 18 questions on revenues and expenses:

- Total gross farm revenue
- Revenue: Sale of grains, oilseeds, pulse crops and forage seeds
- Revenue: Sale of horticulture products
- Revenue: Sale of cattle
- Revenue: Sale of pigs
- Revenue: Sale of poultry
- Revenue: Sale of milk, cream and other dairy products
- Revenue: Agriculture custom of contract work or machine rentals
- Revenue: All other farm revenue
- Revenue: Total amount received for program payments

- Total farm operating expenses
- Operating expenses: fertilizer and lime
- Operating expenses: herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc.
- Operating expenses: seed and plants
- Operating expenses: feed, supplements and hay
- Operating expenses: fuel for machinery, trucks and automobiles
- Operating expenses: total interest paid on farm debt
- Operating expenses: land rentals

Commencing with the 2015 reference year, data from the Farm Financial Survey will be linked with taxation data at the micro level. Linkage results will be used to produce aggregate estimates for revenues and expenses data.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

The CATI application used for collection contains range and consistency edits and help text. A set of reports is run to identify problem items early in collection for remedial action. Processing includes checking interviewer notes, manually reviewing significant inconsistencies, and reviewing the top contributors to the unweighted and weighted estimates (for each variable in each province).

Imputation

Total non-response (e.g. refusals and no contacts) is accounted for by weighting adjustments to each stratum. Some item non-response is estimated deterministically (using other information in the respondent's questionnaire). Missing information is similarly imputed manually during the edit process, and others are imputed using historical information, as well as a donor imputation method. The automated imputation computer system looks for donors based on farm size, farm type and region, and a final review of the imputed data is performed.

Estimation

Initial sampling weights are assigned to all selected establishments based on their probability of selection. Total survey non-response is accounted for by inflating the weights of the respondents within the same stratum. These final weights are used for the tabulation of the estimates.

The precision of the estimates is described through the sampling variance and uses classical statistical formulae for one-stage stratified simple random sampling survey designs.

Once the weights have been calculated for each record, any level of required estimates may be obtained using domain estimation (i.e.: Canada, provincial, farm type, revenue class, etc.).

Quality evaluation

The CATI application contains edits used during collection that enables interviewers to correct errors immediately. Each survey step produces reports that are reviewed and that indicate edit failure counts, missing data counts, and percent impact of imputations on the estimates.

The survey results are evaluated through comparisons to other sources of farm financial information, such as the Agricultural Economic Statistics series, and the Census of Agriculture to assess the quality of the data.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any data which would divulge information obtained under the Statistics Act that relates to any identifiable person, business or organization without the prior knowledge or the consent in writing of that person, business or organization. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

The program Estimex is used to produce all estimates. It automates confidentiality suppression by rounding the number of farms for each estimate to the nearest 5, and also performs rounding on the associated estimates of the characteristics. Cells are suppressed for estimates with a weighted farm count of less than 20 farms.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.

Data accuracy

Sample surveys are designed to provide the highest sampling efficiency (the smallest sample that will produce a sampling error of a given size). This optimization is usually performed for only a few variables, limited by the data items that are available at the time of sample design and selection, the resources available, and the complexity introduced by trying to optimize for many variables at one time. The sample used for these statistics was designed to produce a reasonable level of accuracy for assets and revenue by province and farm type. Consequently, other items may be less accurately estimated.

All estimates are accompanied by an alphabetic code from "a" to "f" that indicates the degree of reliability of each estimate. The codes are based on the value of the coefficient of variation (CV). The CV ratings for this survey are:

Letter Rating CV Rating
A 0.00% to 4.99% Excellent
B 5.00% to 9.99% Very good
C 10.00% to 14.99% Good
D 15.00% to 24.99% Acceptable
E 25.00% to 34.99% Use with caution
F 35.00% or greater, too unreliable to publish

The variability in the estimates can be obtained by constructing confidence intervals around the estimate using the estimate and the coefficient of variation.

The overall response rate of the survey was 77.8% and item non response was low.

COVERAGE ERROR
The Business Register, maintained by the Statistical Registers and Geography Division is used to prevent coverage error and limit its impact. The data are generally of good quality, however, some under-coverage exists due to intercensal agricultural frame degradation (i.e. coverage of new operations). Despite there being new agricultural operations on the Register, they are sometimes unknown from the agricultural population.