Agricultural prices

1.Output index and absolute prices of agricultural products

Source of data: Monthly data on purchases of agricultural products are reported by wholesalers and food processing industry. Monthly data are collected in peasant markets of agricultural products where products are sold by the producers directly to the consumers.
Data are compiled according to the methodology laid down by Eurostat (Handbook for EU Agricultural Price Statistics). Average prices and price indices refer to all qualities of agricultural products (changes in quality may affect the price index).
From the publication of First Release 'Agricultural prices, April 2008' onwards the price indices of all major product aggregates are disseminated in a form of time series spreadsheet which means that price indices relating to the months of the year before the current year and to the current year are published both on the base of the same month of the previous year and compared to the same period of the previous year in case of cumulated price indices (from the first month to the current month of the given year). In case of given product aggregates the interpretation of the indices as time series must be taken carefully while their product composition can vary significantly within the year.

2. Input index

Source of data: Quarterly data on purchase price of fertilizers, pesticides, feedingstuffs and veterinary products are collected from retailers and wholesalers. For other input indices data of consumer, industrial and construction price indices are used. In case of seasonal products (e.g. pesticides) the weighted average price index is calculated using the distribution of the value of purchases during a year.
The indices are Laspeyres type ones with a base year 2000 and when calculating aggregate indices subindices are weighted by the values of purchases in 2000.
Data are compiled according to the methodology laid down by Eurostat (Handbook for EU Agricultural Price Statistics).

3. Terms of trade

Terms of trade figure is calculated by dividing the output price index by the input price index.
Note: data should be considered as preliminary and may change.