1 October 2026, Vienna

FAO and Eurostat reinforce longstanding partnership to advance official statistics, improve data quality, promote international standards and reduce reporting burdens on EU Member States.

Reliable, comparable and timely statistics are essential to guide sound policies, track progress and respond to today’s complex food and agriculture challenges. Through this renewed partnership, FAO and Eurostat will continue working together to strengthen the statistical foundations that support better decision-making in Europe and beyond.

The new five-year arrangement, which extends the agreement first signed in February 2020 and covers statistics related to food, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, natural resources, climate change and rural development. The partnership will focus on advancing sectoral dialogue, strengthening coordination and knowledge sharing, and developing and promoting international standards and norms.

It will also aim to improve statistical coherence and comparability through harmonized concepts, definitions, classifications, data production methods and indicators; reduce the response burden on EU Member States by establishing joint data collection processes and data-sharing protocols; and foster further synergies in areas such as quality assurance and data validation, strategic partnerships, and the modernization of official statistics.

Since 2020, FAO and Eurostat have expanded collaboration across several statistical domains. Key achievements include streamlined data collection in agriculture, forestry and environmental statistics; reduced reporting requirements for countries through increased direct sourcing of their data via Eurostat; joint work on international standards and classifications; collaboration on Linked Open Data and Earth observation statistics; support for global statistical initiatives, including the World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2030 and the 10th International Conference on Agricultural Statistics; and contributions to other initiatives, including workshop series on food and agriculture statistics organized within the framework of the European Master in Official Statistics Network.

Looking ahead, the renewed arrangement will further deepen cooperation in areas such as agricultural research and development statistics, agricultural production, environmental statistics, data dissemination, Linked Open Data, and methodological development through the United Nations Committee of Experts on Agricultural and Rural Statistics (UN-CEAG).

The agreement was signed on 1 October in Vienna, on the margins of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities meeting, by FAO Chief Statistician José Rosero Moncayo and Eurostat Director-General Mariana Kotzeva.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Moncayo and Kotzeva highlighted the importance of the renewed partnership in strengthening the availability, quality and international comparability of agricultural and food statistics, while reducing the reporting burden on countries and supporting evidence-based policymaking.

“This arrangement marks an important step towards significantly reducing the response burden on European Union Member States, accelerating the development of international standards for food and agriculture statistics, and improving the overall quality and comparability of the data published by the two Organizations,” stated Moncayo.

“The renewal of the administrative arrangement between Eurostat and FAO highlights our commitment to continue to strengthen international cooperation in official statistics. By combining our expertise, we can improve the relevance of information we provide on agriculture, food systems, natural resources, and climate change. The data sharing will also result in reducing reporting burden for EU Member States”, ­said Mariana Kotzeva, Director-General of Eurostat.