Monitoring the effects of production control on farms and territories - Administrative data, management tools?

Abstract

The evolutions of the common agricultural policy have created tools used for the control of animal productions such as « rights to produce » (dairy quotas) or « rights to bonus » (PMTVA, PCO...). The « administrative » management of these rights makes them a tool for a policy of agricultural orientation and management, which is under the responsibility of the « Commission départementale d'orientation de l'agriculture (CDOA) ». This article describes the methological study undertaken in the Massif central by the CNASEA together with the Cemagref, as well as the ADASEA and the DDAF of three test departments (Aveyron, Cantal, Creuse). The goal was to come up with recommendations to use at best the department administrative data, to analyze them together with other sources of statistical information, and thus create a system of management aid. The manual of recommendations published in the summer of 1997 concerns: the creation of a departmental database, its use for analysis. This use is described in terms of global description of agriculture, of monitoring table for the management of right flows, of analysis by production systems, and of land analysis. The article presents some key technical elements such as principal and constraints of the creation of a database, interest and ambiguity of a computation of equivalence between productions, and the various mapping approaches. It then informs on the real consequences in the three key depatments and on an additional ongoing study. Finally, perspectives are drawn: evolution of the political and regulation context which gives even more importance to this methodological study, evolution of the computer system in the DDAF which should raise some of the constraints. The optimal use of administrative data, in spite of their limitations, offers a potential of very interesting management aid, albeit very costly in terms of time, thus the need to think about the organization of this management and about human ressources that must be dedicated to it.