Selling and rental prices of agricultural land

Statistics Estonia

Economic and Environmental Statistics Department

Pille Veidenberg

Leading Analyst

51 Tatari Str, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia

pille.veidenberg [at] stat.ee

37258872904

27/03/2025

27/03/2025

Agricultural land prices and rents

Classification of Agricultural Land

Agriculture

Arable land – land worked regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation.

Average rent per hectare of agricultural land – all rent expenses per hectare of utilised agricultural area paid by lessee in a calendar year.

Average sale price per hectare of agricultural land – average price per hectare of utilised agricultural area sold in a calendar year.

Permanent grassland – land used to grow grass and other herbaceous crops, through cultivation (sown) or naturally (self-seeded) and which is not included in the crop rotation for more than 5 years. Species suitable for grazing should be included, provided that grass and other herbaceous crops remain dominating.

Utilised agricultural area – area utilised by agricultural holdings for agricultural production or maintained in good agricultural and environmental condition (incl. arable land, permanent grassland, fruit and berry plantations, nurseries and kitchen gardens).

Sale transaction;

rent transaction

Transactions in selling and renting agricultural area

FRAME

Not applicable

Estonia as a whole.

From 2013, sale prices of agricultural land are published by county, if possible.

2009–…

Not applicable

Price – euro

Year

DIRECTLY APPLICABLE LEGAL ACTS

Regulation (EU) 2022/2379 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 November 2022 on statistics on agricultural input and output, amending Commission Regulation (EC) No 617/2008 and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1165/2008, (EC) No 543/2009 and (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Council Directive 96/16/EC (Text with EEA relevance)

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1579 of 31 July 2023 laying down rules for the application of Regulation (EU) 2022/2379 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards agricultural price statistics (Text with EEA relevance)

OTHER LEGAL ACTS

Not available

OTHER AGREEMENTS

Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat)

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act.

The dissemination of data collected for the production of official statistics is based on the requirements laid down in §§ 34 and 35 of the Official Statistics Act.

The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here.

Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month).

Calendar

All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8:00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar.

Annual

Not published

Not published

Data are published in the statistical database at https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat under the subject area Economy/Agriculture / Economic accounts for agriculture in the following table:

PM59: Utilised agricultural land prices and rents per hectare by county.

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes.

Data serve as input, if necessary, for statistical activity "Economic accounts for agriculture".

Eurostat's manual on agricultural land prices and rents

The quality report submitted to Eurostat

To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act.

Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions.

Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture

Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys.

In compliance with the rules (regulations)

The type of survey and the data collection methods ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness.

Not applicable

Not measured

The data have been published at the time announced in the release calendar.

The data are comparable to the data of other Member States of the European Union because a common methodology is used. Data on Estonia are comparable across counties.

From 2020, sale prices have been published in co-operation with the Estonian Land Board by processing the data of the Land Board and ARIB. Therefore, the data are not comparable with the data of prior periods.

The data are closely linked to other statistics in the field of agriculture, i.e. the same concepts and definitions are used as in other agricultural statistics.

The internal consistency of the data is ensured by the use of a common methodology for data collection and data aggregation.

The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics of the website of Statistics Estonia.

The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available.

SURVEY DATA

Not used

ADMINISTRATIVE DATA

Sale prices of agricultural land, including arable land and permanent grassland, are obtained from the Estonian Land Board.

Rents of agricultural land are obtained from the Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN) of the Centre of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge.

DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES

Not used

Annual

Data are received by e-mail.

Arithmetic and qualitative controls are used in the validation process, including comparison with other data.

In 2009–2012 only the transactions with agricultural land that were made by legal persons whose main economic activity is agriculture were registered.

In 2013–2019 data on sale transactions and in 2014–2018 also rent transactions were published on the basis of administrative (data of the Agricultural Registers and Information Board (ARIB), the Estonian Land Board, the Centre of Registers and Information Systems and the Estonian Tax and Customs Board were processed).

Since 2019, land rents have been published on the basis of the Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN) of the Centre of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge.

Since 2020, sale prices have been published in co-operation with the Land Board by processing the data of the Land Board and ARIB.

When processing the Land Board data, a transaction has been excluded in the following cases: 1) according to ARIB, the share of land use is less than 90% of the respective land use type; 2) the transaction object is not designated 100% as profit yielding land; 3) the transaction object is built up; 4) the type of the transaction object is not immovable property; 5) the transaction type is not sale-purchase; 6) one transaction party is the state or local government, excl. state and local government auctions; 7) the number of immovables is more than one; 8) at the time of transaction, the transferred immovable was encumbered with building rights or usufruct; 9) it is a block transaction – several transaction objects are sold under the same notarial contract; 10) the parties to the transaction are connected (business or family relations, etc.); 11) there is some other known circumstance that indicates that the transaction did not take place in free market conditions; 12) the area of the transaction object is less than two hectares; 13) it is a repeat transaction; of the repeated transactions made on the same day, the transaction with the lowest price is excluded; 14) the unit price of the transaction does not correspond to the threshold prices.

Not applicable

Not available