Error

Revised figures for 2020 were published 7 October 2021. Due to deficiencies in the data base, figures for 2020 on agriculture an horticulture total, forestry total and other gainful activities total were 0,01-0,77 per cent too low.

Census of agriculture

Updated: 1 October 2021

Next update: Not yet determined

Man-years in agriculture
Man-years in agriculture
2020
50 043
Man-year executed in agriculture, horticulture and forestry.
Man-year executed in agriculture, horticulture and forestry.
Man-yearPer cent change
1999201020201 1999-20202010-2020
Agriculture and horticulture, forestry and other gainful activities, total88 32756 73750 043-43-12
Agriculture and horticulture, total80 76951 24044 732-45-13
Agriculture and horticulture, performed by holder and spouses/cohabitants61 37133 03927 353-55-17
Agriculture and horticulture performed by holders family8 9455 4544 337-52-20
Agriculture and horticulture performed by other regular or occasional help10 45212 74713 042252
Forestry, total3 2011 435895-72-38
Other gainful activities, total4 3574 0624 41519
1Labour input is from 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2020
Explanation of symbols

Selected tables and charts from this statistics

  • Agricultural holdings with places for cattle, by region and type of cattle. 2020
    Agricultural holdings with places for cattle, by region and type of cattle. 2020
    Holdings with places in usePlaces in usePlaces in tied stalls (per cent)Places in loose/cubicle housing (per cent)Places in other types of housing/outdoors (per cent)
    The whole country
    Dairy cows7 145213 51135640
    Other cows (beef cows)5 894105 83324678
    Other cattle12 992563 61728684
    Oslo and Viken
    Dairy cows39513 49125741
    Other cows (beef cows)66914 42498011
    Other cattle1 07147 19815788
    Innlandet
    Dairy cows1 36237 77339610
    Other cows (beef cows)1 25427 08621709
    Other cattle2 522114 25228675
    Vestfold og Telemark
    Dairy cows1384 5572278:
    Other cows (beef cows)3567 18458510
    Other cattle50319 4278849
    Agder
    Dairy cows2807 00647530
    Other cows (beef cows)4406 821216712
    Other cattle71722 93128657
    Rogaland
    Dairy cows1 09438 81035641
    Other cows (beef cows)91314 44942535
    Other cattle1 88198 20731654
    Vestland
    Dairy cows1 09424 37748521
    Other cows (beef cows)6026 115454510
    Other cattle1 81850 94742543
    Møre og Romsdal
    Dairy cows63719 01435650
    Other cows (beef cows)3164 68332626
    Other cattle1 02643 40333643
    Trøndelag - Trööndelage
    Dairy cows1 41046 91728710
    Other cows (beef cows)89717 35623726
    Other cattle2 272114 86125732
    Nordland - Nordlánnda
    Dairy cows47714 45234650
    Other cows (beef cows)3476 30935569
    Other cattle81638 31333643
    Troms og Finnmark - Romsa ja Finnmárku
    Dairy cows2587 1143862:
    Other cows (beef cows)1001 406256312
    Other cattle36614 07836594
    Explanation of symbols
  • Agricultural holdings with places in use for pigs, by region. 2020
    Agricultural holdings with places in use for pigs, by region. 2020
    Holdings with places in use for pigsPlaces in use for pigsPlaces in partially slatted foor (per cent)Places in solid floor housing (per cent)Places where the entire surface is deep litter (per cent)Outdoors (per cent)
    The whole country1 998530 173821242
    Oslo and Viken25664 7227511104
    Innlandet385120 504811154
    Vestfold og Telemark14844 1647311133
    Agder699 69791513
    Rogaland508147 23891711
    Vestland14717 15089902
    Møre og Romsdal609 354881011
    Trøndelag - Trööndelage31090 547772111
    Nordland - Nordlánnda9324 118742041
    Troms og Finnmark - Romsa ja Finnmárku222 67988::5
    Explanation of symbols
  • Agricultural holdings with places in use for laying hens, by region. 2020
    Agricultural holdings with places in use for laying hens, by region. 2020
    Holdings with places in use for laying hensPlaces in use for laying hensIn cages with manure belts (per cent)Free range in aviary house (per cent)Free range in deep litter housing (per cent)Free range outdoors (per cent)
    The whole country1 5024 593 095137099
    Oslo and Viken207714 4811657324
    Innlandet225771 3685621617
    Vestfold og Telemark92236 5472451322
    Agder75123 267:77:1
    Rogaland2131 235 998206992
    Vestland206197 864108055
    Møre og Romsdal100143 9891667161
    Trøndelag - Trööndelage2421 027 22368770
    Nordland - Nordlánnda8391 3391071109
    Troms og Finnmark - Romsa ja Finnmárku5951 019158411
    Explanation of symbols
  • Gross amount manure in storage, by type of livestock and type of storage. Tonnes total nitrogen. 2020
    Gross amount manure in storage, by type of livestock and type of storage. Tonnes total nitrogen. 2020
    Holdings with manure storageWith cellar for liquid manure/slurryGravity flow slurry channelsWith outdoor manure pits/lagoon for liquid manure/slurryWith indoor built up/deep litterWith outdoor built up/enclosureWith outdoor storage directly on the groundWith outdoor storage on impermeable surfaceWith cellar for solid dungWith urine pitWhithout storage for manure
    Dairy cows20 26112 9854676 5224722612711310
    Other cows (beef cows)5 2242 56574855706210492183962419
    Other cattle19 80012 5593864 59682724056725618211671
    Pigs6 3943 1071522 74782251144334855
    Sheep7 0893 522898925320510411 46711186
    Goats4773050549111828402
    Horses772500551963327889170
    Broilers, ducks, turkeys and geese for fattening2 25894:5563661 040254182:503
    Laying hens 20 weeks old and over3 024151:23391286213471 222:310
    Explanation of symbols
  • Agricultural holdings and area with use of spreading equipment for manure, by region. 2020
    Agricultural holdings and area with use of spreading equipment for manure, by region. 2020
    Holdings with use of spreading equipment in totalDirect ground injectionSplash plate on vaccum tankSplash plate with tow hoseBand spreader with vaccum tankBand spreader with tow hoseVaccum tank/water wagon with cannonRear discharge spreaderSpreading equipment used on agricultural area in total (decares)Direct ground injection (decares)Splash plate on vaccum tank (decares)Splash plate with tow hose (decares)Band spreader with vaccum tank (decares)Band spreader with tow hose (decares)Vaccum tank/water wagon with cannon (decares)Rear discharge spreader (decares)
    The whole country23 09250615 7661 6828802 2921 6625 1843 859 22561 3092 391 184236 415164 373554 907115 302335 735
    Oslo and Viken1 940527919212731321912342 9947 724111 35914 33625 64689 5702 26892 091
    Innlandet4 2861032 950328210467831 003676 24911 167395 16950 09535 354107 4884 97272 003
    Vestfold og Telemark81822286309712016390127 1693 06734 4947 08618 74534 8421 23127 704
    Agder1 0866674912501573248136 2899 366101 0111 2247 9532 2855 3139 138
    Rogaland3 288442 562175116382666446612 3726 881388 30227 42724 24785 81352 80526 897
    Vestland4 055562 44067468382618946378 5731 372201 24059 0283 59153 03034 15726 154
    Møre og Romsdal1 753221 445110297558250300 9031 073243 14321 3604 32418 7493 3798 875
    Trøndelag - Trööndelage3 720732 91619412539275592852 78210 623587 35042 26629 836120 0386 72155 948
    Nordland - Nordlánnda1 408401 094522411934233300 0124 829229 63211 7314 79035 6432 99710 390
    Troms og Finnmark - Romsa ja Finnmárku7382853315342718164131 8835 20699 4841 8629 8877 4491 4596 535
    Explanation of symbols

About the statistics

The aim of the census is to give a view of base of resources and production, and operational and environmental conditions in agricultural business. Additionally, the census shall give a historical view of the development and how farming is conducted in Norway.

Holding: Business with agricultural activity, included animal husbandry and horticulture. The holding comprise all activity operated as one unit under one administration with common use of production means, and which is not depending on regional borders.

The holder(s): The one/those who is responsible for the agricultural activity.

Agricultural area in use: Comprise all own and rented agricultural area in use, included one year set aside area. Fully cultivated, surface cultivated cultivated pasture are calculated as agricultural area.

Agricultural area in use by the municipality where the area is physically located. A holding may operate agricultural land in more than one municipality. Since 1984, agricultural area in use mainly has been published by the municipality where the headquarter of the holding is located. Owning and renting of land independent of municipal boundaries cause difficulties in showing a municipality's actual agricultural area. The term "Agricultural area in use by the municipality where the area is physically located" shows the agricultural area situated in each individual municipality.

Rented agricultural area. Agricultural area where the owner and holder of the area are different persons, including legal persons. Include all rented agricultural area regardless of whether remuneration is paid or not. Both leasing of a complete holding and rent of additional land to an existing holding are regarded as rented agricultural area. If the spouse of a holder is the owner, the area is considered as owned. If a partner of joint operation etc. owns area that is in use on the joint operation, the area is considered as owned. A lease refers to an agricultural property’s main identification number in the Farm Register. This means that if one holding has more than one rent agreement from the same property, the agreements are only counted as one lease. However, one property may rent out area to several holdings and this is counted as one lease for each of the holdings involved.

Man-year. In the data collection labour input is collected as man-hours. To calculate man-year, 1875 hours per man-year have been used for 1999 and 1845 hours for 2010 and 2020.

Other gainful acitivities/Supplemantary industries are activities or businesses operated on the holding. The activity ought to be based on the holding's resources (area, buildings, machinery and/or products/raw materials), and can be of both small and big extent.

Greenhouse: an area that can be entered without having to remove a glass or plastic cover. Areas with a lower ceiling height than this are defined as hotbeds and are not classified as greenhouses.

Nursery: a business that cultivates ornamental plants, fruit trees and berry bushes. Forest nurseries are not included in the census.

Mainly following groupings are used in the tables: County, agricultural area in use.

Name: Census of agriculture
Topic: Agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing

Not yet determined

Division for Housing, Property, Spatial and Agricultural Statistics

Municipality. Other regions at lower level will be considered if it does not get into conflict with confidensiality.

Complete censuses have been conducted every tenth year since the beginning of the 20th century. All agriculture properties and agricultural holdings are included in this years census.

Information is forwarded to EUs statistical office, Eurostat in accordance with specifications given in the i regulation. Results will also be a part of data deliveries to FAO.

Deidentified data file with data from registers and questionnaires will be filed in Statistics Norway.

The aim of the census is to give a view of base of resources and production, and operational and environmental conditions in agricultural business. Additionally, the census shall give a historical view of the development and how farming is conducted in Norway.

The Census of agriculture is financed by own resources in Statistics Norway's budget as well as contributions from Norwegian Envrionment Agency and Ministry of local Government and Modernisation.

Important users of results are administrative agencies, the governments agricultural authorities and the farmers unions. Data will be used in planning, investigations, support for desicion making and research etcetera. Data is a very important contribution in the negotiations between the farmers unions and the Government

A census makes it possible to publish results on low geographical levels which makes the municipality bodies capable to study development at smaller regions than county.

Not relevant

The Census of Agricultural is close related to other statistics published annually. In the work with the census, one will make it possible to see the statistics in connection with each other.

Statistical act § 10-1

REGULATION (EU) 2018/1091 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 18 July 2018 on integrated farm statistics and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1166/2008 and (EU) No 1337/2011

Census of agriculture comprise all agricultural properties and all holdings with a minimum production (area, animal husbandry).

An agricultural property is a property with at least 25 decares (2,5 hectares) productive forestry area and/or at least 5 decares (0,5 hectares) agricultural area. An agricultural holding is defined as a enterprise with at least 5 decares of agricultural area in use and/or a minimum of animal husbandry.

Holdings with horticulture compromise holdings with at least 2.0 decares of field-grown vegetables, at least 1.0 decare of fruit trees (50 fruit trees in 1979 and 1989), at least 1.0 decare of field-grown berries, at least 300 m 2 of greenhouse area or at least 1.0 decare of nursery.

All information about farmers, owners and properties are collected from different registers. Some information from the holdings are collected on own questionnaires (unfortunately only available in Norwegian here: https://www.ssb.no/lt2010 ).

Data collection can be divided in two.

All holdings are obliged to fill in a questionnaire with questions about labour input, other gainful activities, drainage, irrigation and use of animal manure. In addition, all horticultural holdings were obliged to fill in a questionnaire regarding horticulture.

Many registers are merged with data from the questionnaire:

  • Farm register
  • Application for Governmental grants
  • Business Register
  • Education-register
  • Tax register
  • A-ordningen

Census of agriculture is a complete census. To be able to publish preliminary figures at an early stage, a sample is drawn from all received questionnaires. The sample comprise 7 850 holdings. The sample is stratified by size of agricultural area in use, what kind of production and county.

When final figures were produced, the figures for labour input were lower than expected. The difference was due to the sample that did not intercept changes and specialisation in the population. The difference is linked to "other prcductions" which includes to many different productions.

The questionnaires were sent to the holdings in the population. The counting date of the Census was 1st October 2020.

Information from registers are collected by different divisions in Statistics Norway.

Many different controls and checks have been conducted to make sure quality and consistence within one report and between different reports and registers. A new automatic data editing system was introduced to control, correct, edit and imputate missing or erroneous values. The system imputated values based on logical controls, average values, proportional frequency distribution and by "nearest neighbour" principles (impute values from a holding very similar to the holdings that is edited).

In a complete census the calculations are rather simple with addition, grouping and cross tabulating.

In the sample (preliminary figures) the population are stratified by county, size of agricultural area in use and production. A weight is calculted for each holding.

See also 3.3. Sample.

Conversion of energy contents to kWh in 2010 was based on factors described in About the statistics regarding the Energy balanse and energy account, see https://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/01/03/10/energiregn_en

Not relevant

Results from the census are restrained if there are to few observations behind the results, or if the results can be traced beck to single respondents.

Censuses in primary industries have been conducted since 1907.

The time series can not be compared back to 1907, but are in many ways comparable back to late 1940's. For some variables there are breaks in the time series. From 1999 all activity are registrered in the municipality where the agricultural area is situated. Before 1999 the activity was registered where the farm was situated.

The questions about foreign labour force in 2010 included more kind of labour force than 1999. In 1999 labour force were defined as "guestworkers staying in Norway for shorter periods to participate in farming, i.e. harvesting". The questions in 1999 were only asked to horticulture producers. Foreign labour force has increased since 1999, and there are reasons to beleive that foreign labour input in 1999 on the whole only consisted of persons that stayed in the country for shorter periods of time. Anyway a comparison of foreign labour force in 1999 and 2010 should be done with consciousness.

The questions about other gainful activities were introduced in 1999. In these 11 years, the more attention has been put on such activities and the questions have been adjusted. This might have influence on some of the results. For example the increase in number of holdings whice rent out hunting and fishing rights are not real. Probably the figures for 1999 are to low.

Primary data are collected from electronic questionnaires filled in by the respondents. The questionnaires can include errors done by the respondent filling in the form. Many of the errors are detected through the processing in Statistics Norway.

All surveys contains measuring errors, i.e. the respondent does not know the exact value or the questions are misunderstood.

An automatic editing system has been used in data editing, which can create new errors. The data editing is anyhow not done in a way that create new systematic errors. The data set is controlled and checked after data editing.

In data registers both measuring errors and processing errors can occur. Not all register data are input to administration routines, and are therefore not thoroughly checked. As far as possible, Statistics Norway corrects register data for statistical calculations. Statistics Norway has an overview for how register data are controlled by the register owners.

At last deadline for data reporting, 98 percent had responded. Values for no response will be imputated from other sources (registers, other surveys) and by other statistical ways of data imputation.

Partial no response will be corrected either manually or automatically. Several automatically controls are ran in connection with other ways of imputation (cf. 3.5.)

Sample errors is not relevant in a complete census, but will be handled when preliminary figures are published. Preliminary figures are based on an selection. In 2020 the selection size was 7 850 units.

Register errors: Quality of registers used to establish population might have influence on quality of the product. The quality of the registers is calculated as very good, and many resources were spend to establis a complete population.

All data on marital status are collected from registers. The register do not intercept all non marital cohabitations, so there might bed differences between information given on questionnaires and register. For example it might have been given information on labour input for both holder and spouse/cohabitant whilst the register "says" that the holder is single. When publishing results, we strictly use register data which makes it possible to link other information to the persons.

Not relevant

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