Second stage questionnaires

Thank you to those who completed the introductory questionnaire for the EISfOM project. If you have expressed an interest in becoming a member of the project, this is currently being processed and you will hear from the Co-ordinator shortly.

Since we are looking at both the current situation and possible future development potential, we are interested in the data your institution collects whether or not this includes data on organic products or organic agriculture at this time.

At the beginning of the project an introductory questionnaire was sent out which requested general information on your organisation and your data collection and processing activities. We also offered the opportunity to become a member of the project: in return for your collaboration in responding to questionnaires and other requests for information, you would be given access to unpublished project reports, e-mail discussion groups and the membernet pages of the project website, together with the chance to participate in two European seminars.

If you failed to find the time to fill out the introductory questionnaire before, you can still do so.

The second questionnaires ask for more detailed information about the Data Collection and Processing Systems (DCPS), which your institution runs. We have enclosed a further set of questionnaires, which together cover each of the main data collection levels relevant to organic agriculture:

Production (Farm) Level
Structural Data about Agriculture; Price Data on Farm level; Farm Accountancy Data; Production Volume and Value Data when gathered on farm level
Wholesaler / Processor Level
Production Volume and Value, Price Data, Turnover, Market Trends/ Forecast
Import / Export Level
Import and Export Volumes
Retailer Level
Data about Sales Volumes and Values on retailer level
Consumer level
Data about Food Consumption, Household Expenditures and consumer prices for food

Please complete the questionnaires for your institution by filling in
the areas shaded in grey or by ticking the appropriate boxes.

Each individual questionnaire in this set is designed for answering questions on a single DCPS. We would ask you to select and answer questionnaires only on the levels at which your department / your institution collects data. That is, for example, if your institution runs a consumer panel, please select the questionnaire “Database Consumer Level”, or if you evaluate data from agricultural accounting systems, then please complete the questionnaire “Database Farm Level”. If your institution runs two different Data Collection and Processing Systems (DCPS), which relate to the same level (e.g. retail trade), please fill out two separate questionnaires at that level.

The results of both surveys will be analysed and reported by the spring of 2004. We will inform you about the results via the EISfOM “membernet” (the homepage for active members of the project), and this should offer you an overview of the institutions across Europe which collect data on organic products / production in particular fields. A European workshop is planned to take place on 26-27 April 2004 for the presentation of the survey results and discussion of possible strategies for the development of European data collection and processing systems, which will integrate organic agriculture. We will inform you in due course of the workshop programme and location.

We would like to thank you again for your involvement in the survey. Please return completed questionnaires by 10 December 2003 to the country coordinators

Yours sincerely

Dr. Nic Lampkin; Project Co-ordinator