There are three types of lies -
- lies,
damn lies,
and statistics.
This is perhaps the most famous quote about
the branch of mathematics dealing with collection, analysis, interpretation,
and presentation of masses of numerative data,
also known as statistics.
This quote is sometimes wrongly attributed
to the American writer Mark Twain
but it actually comes from the father
of modern British conservative party,
Benjamin Disraeli.
Statistics has always been a useful tool in politics
to help understand the world around us
and even the etymology of the word statistics
hints at its original purpose
to be used by governmental and administrative bodies.
But the quote explains a sense of mistrust toward this science
because the persuasive power of numbers
and of course, figures
can be used for wrong purposes or to strengthen weak arguments.
Another quote says:
“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
That was really from Mark Twain.
Nevertheless, our modern world is
overwhelmed by quantitative data
and there’s really no business sector
that doesn’t make enormous use of statistics.
And agriculture is no different.
Think about it:
agriculture is the result of many
physical,
physical, social,
physical, social, cultural,
physical, social, cultural, economic,
physical, social, cultural, economic, institutional,
physical, social, cultural, economic, institutional, technological,
physical, social, cultural, economic, institutional, technological, political
physical, social, cultural, economic, institutional, technological, political and psychological aspects
interacting with each other.
And statistics can help policymakers, as well as stakeholders,
the public opinion,
journalists
having a better grasp of this complexity.
The utility of figures about farming becomes clear
either when numbers relate to purely economic aspects
such as the agriculture output or prices of agricultural commodities,
or when data involve socio-economical features,
for instance what percentage of the population
is involved in agriculture,
which is useful to understand the trend of depopulation of rural areas.
And we’ve recently seen new emerging environmental aspects
that need some statistics to be assessed,
like the impact of climate change and extreme weather conditions
on farmer’s ability to survive and build a profitable business
but also other environmental issues like soil quality,
since soil organic matter has been increasingly depleted
due to land-use intensification and mono-cultures.
Data and numerical information has played a crucial role
in the growth and development of agriculture
and the importance of statistical science was obvious
even to European founding fathers
so that when in 1958 the original European Community was set up,
the forerunner of the modern Eurostat was also established.
And again, the first publication that the then
Statistical Office of the European Communities issued
was on, guess what?
That's right, agricultural statistics.
Even today, Eurostat provides an incredible number
of updated figures, tables and charts in its database
which is available online and accessible free of charge
by me, you, everyone.
When the common agricultural policy (CAP)
first saw the light of day in 1962,
it was already clear that it would have had a big impact
on the development of agricultural statistics in Europe.
And that’s because the implementation of the CAP
required statistics that were not only detailed and up to date,
but also comparable in each member state.
So the initial work was focused on the collection
and harmonisation of existing statistics
in order to monitor the common agricultural policy development,
but over the past years
the focus has been partially moved on new emerging themes
such as the environment and rural development.
The Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework
for the past CAP programme, which lasted from 2014 to 2020,
identified a set of performance indicators
that contribute to the assessment of CAP performance,
such as farming income support, market orientation and environment.
On the Commission’s website, you can find 12 thematic indicators
and 45 context indicators,
and again this is available on the Commission’s website.
The thematic indicators basically combine normal statistics
with further information such as on trade and quality schemes.
So for instance if we click on soil quality
which is, as I mentioned before, a top priority for European agriculture,
you can find figures on things like crop diversity on EU farms
but also on the share of EU funding beneficiaries
subject to crop diversification
as a greening measures in the past CAP programme.
And at the same time,
you can find insightful figures on market orientation in the EU
such as the world price volatility for certain commodity,
you can select beef, eggs sugar and so on.
But also, when it comes to socio-economical aspects,
there are interesting graphs
like the share of direct support in agriculture income per country
which in a sense can tell us a bit more on the farmer dependence
on EU subsidies for each member state.
With the latest update of December 2020,
there are also 45 new dashboards on context indicators
which are grouped into socio-economic indicators,
sectoral indicators and environmental indicators.
So, for example, we can check the livestock units,
which is a tricky issue in the debate on the European Green Deal
and if you’re interested
you can play with all of these numbers on the website.
So statistics are of course useful,
helping both to forge public policies
and for us to better assess them
but, to close with another saying by George Bernard Shaw:
“Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating,
very few survive.”