Background Notes

About this Release

The Regional Accounts for Agriculture release provides a regional breakdown of figures already published at State level in the 2012 Output, Input and Income in Agriculture release – final estimate. Definitions of the items in this release are shown in the background notes to the 2012 Output, Input and Income in Agriculture release.

Regional accounts for the whole economy are also published by the CSO in County Incomes and Regional GDP. Details on agriculture are included (as part of the agriculture, forestry and fisheries figure) in these publications. Details for agriculture, forestry and fisheries (and the other sectors of the economy) are published for the item Gross Value Added (GVA) at basic prices. This is a measure of the value of the goods and services produced in a region priced at the producer prices minus any taxes payable and plus any subsidies receivable as a consequence of their production or sale. For agriculture alone (excluding forestry and fisheries) this figure relates to the Operating Surplus figure shown in the present release as follows:

GVA at basic prices = Operating surplus

+ Compensation of employees

+ Fixed capital consumption

- Other subsidies less taxes on production

Allocation to Regions

The general approach for the compilation of regional agricultural accounts is that the value at State level is allocated to each region using an appropriate allocator. The choice of allocator used dependents on the particular accounts item. For example, the number of dairy cows and total cattle in each region, respectively, is used as the allocator to derive regional estimates for milk and cattle production. The cow and cattle numbers are based on the data from the Animal Identification and Movement (AIM) system run by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM). The number of sheep from the CSO's annual June Livestock survey is used as an allocator for sheep output.

The majority of the State level agricultural account items (which are themselves estimates) are allocated, in the absence of actual regional value data, using the methodology outlined above. More reliance should be placed on the changes between years rather than on the absolute value of the figures for any one year.

The regional results presented in this release relate to each region as a whole. Thus the regional values of the account items, including operating surplus, are not necessarily spread uniformly throughout the region.

Regions

The regional classifications in this release are based on the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units) classification used by Eurostat. The NUTS 3 regions correspond to the eight Regional Authorities established under the Local Government Act, 1991 (Regional Authorities) (Establishment) Order, 1993, which came into operation on 1 January 1994. The NUTS 2 regions are groupings of the NUTS 3 regions. The composition of the regions is set out below.

Border, Midland and Western NUTS 2 Region

Border Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Louth, Monaghan and Sligo

Midland Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath

West Galway City, Galway County, Mayo and Roscommon

Southern and Eastern NUTS 2 Region

Dublin Dublin City, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin

Mid-East Kildare, Meath and Wicklow

Mid-West Clare, Limerick City, Limerick County and North Tipperary

South-East Carlow, Kilkenny, South Tipperary, Waterford City, Waterford County and Wexford

South-West Cork City, Cork County and Kerry