La connaissance statistique des revenus agricoles

The statistical information concerning farm income provided by the INSEE or by the Statistics department of the Ministry of Agriculture, although still incomplete, largely because of our inaccurate knowledge of farm income for tax purposes, is neverthel es sufficient in volume and fairly complementary, so that farm income is perhaps the most accurately known of incomes other than those of wage-earners. In this study, the data provided by a direct approach - the accounts network on the microeconomic level, national and deparmental accounts on the macroeconomic level, and data from « indirect » sources such as the break-down of accounts according to farm types, carried out by the SCEES (Analysis 1970) or the accounts per household worked out by the INSEE - are distinguished. This last group is the most recent and is more approximate but is also much more thorough and detailed. The main problem still to be solved, in a branch where two forms of activity are very widespread, is a better knowledge of non-agricultural income. This poses several statistical and methodological problems, including the definition of a farm and a farming household. A programme for improving these sources of information is outlined at the end of this analysis.