# Business and Personal Data

There are different types of data describing characteristics of farming businesses and actors involved in agricultural activities (e.g. farmers and other land users, planners of land use, representatives of interest groups, politicians in the agricultural sector, and consumers of agricultural products). These types of data include surveys, official and other statistics, interviews, workshops with experts’ judgements, focus groups, and other. They can be provided in different forms such as text, numbers, audios, or videos. The data can be distinguished between different statuses, i.e., raw data, result data, and syntax data. Thus, standards vary over different data types and statuses. This chapter focus on standards for raw data from surveys, statistical analysis and interviews.

Overview of existing standards

# Business Association ADM

# (Arbeitskreis Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforschungsinstitute e.V.)

Represents the interests of private-sector market and social research agencies in Germany and provides guidelines and quality standards, e.g. about telephone, online and personal surveys, about focus group discussion, qualitative interviews and ethical standards in data collection.

# Certification and labels for organic farming

# (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, 2007)

In the European Union the Council Regulation No 824/2007 [1] on organic production aims to ensure an “effective functioning of the internal market, guaranteeing fair competition”, and “protecting consumer interests”. It lists rules e.g. for livestock production, fertility management and soil protection.

# Demographic Standards 2016

This is a collection of Quality Reports about methods, definitions and standards for statistical information, including anonymization, table design, classification of professions, demographic standards, and macro and micro data statistics.

Joint recommendation by ADM and the German Federal Statistical Office provide survey versions. GESIS provides the ZIS Version 14.00, 2010, which is a collection of social science items and scales.

# Education, status and prestige

• ISCED-International Standard Classification of Education by the UNESCO (1997/2011):
• SIOPS/ISEI/EGP Occupational Status [2]
• ESeC – European socio-economic classification (User Guide)

# Guidelines for Focus Groups

• AIMRO (Association of Irish Market Research Organizations, 2009)
• Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): a 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups [3]

Table 5: Standards and guidelines for methodological approaches

Further Guidelines

• ecoinvent provides high quality environmental assessment, life cycle assessment and product chains in database
• Guideline Foresight (JRC)
• ICC/ESOMAR International Code: Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics
• DESTATIS: statistical data e.g. classification of professions, thesaurus, statistical reporting, macro and micro data, table design, anonymization and privacy (see link list Chapter 4.3)
• Sustainability Reporting Guidelines: GRI (Global Reporting Initiative)
• EC 2015: Better Regulations Guidelines e.g. on impact assessment