To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs whether his Department intends to conduct a further Social Survey of Farmers and Farm Families in Northern Ireland.

The Social Survey of Farmers and Farm Families was conducted in 2001/02. Officials looked into running a follow-up survey in 2011 but the costs were deemed prohibitive and alternative ways of obtaining this information were considered.

As part of this work, DAERA statisticians are liaising with Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and the Administrative Data Research Centre in Northern Ireland to securely and confidentially link de-identified data. These data are sourced from the Census of Population, various DAERA datasets linked to the farm register and Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR) with the aim of researching the characteristics of farms, farmers, farm households and farm workers.

The Department will also consider adding a small number of additional questions to the Farm Census survey and other regular surveys, on an ad hoc basis, in order to ensure that information previously gathered through the Social Survey of Farmers and Farm Families, that is not available from other datasets, continues to be available to inform policy development.