Definitions
Output of the agricultural "industry" - is the total of the production of all agricultural units expressed in value of production. The value of each of the items is valued at producer prices, which are the prices that agricultural producers receive from the purchasers for a unit of produced goods.
Intermediate consumption - consists of the value of goods and services used as inputs in the production process, excluding fixed assets whose consumption is recorded as fixed capital consumption.
Gross Value Added - is a balancing item of the production account in the Economic Accounts for Agriculture. It is calculated as a difference between agricultural output on the one hand and total intermediate consumption on the other hand.
Methods of calculation
According to the recommendations of the ESA 95 (European System of Accounts), for the calculation of regional accounts 3 methods are used: "Bottom-up", "Top-down" and the "Mixed" method.
"Bottom-up" (method of calculation from a lower to a higher level) - is used when basic data on the production of agricultural products are available at the regional level. Under this method, the value of Production is calculated using the formula Vri = qri x pi, where Vri is the value of production of product i in region r, qri is the amount of product i produced in region r, and pi is the price of product i in a given year.
"Top-down" (method of calculation from high to low level) - includes distribution of national values among the regions with the so-called Keys for distribution that would most adequately reflect the occurrence that is calculated. This method is used when the basic data for the calculation of the indicators are not available at the regional level.
"Mixed" - (combined method) is the most commonly used method, which combines the previous two. By using the Bottom-up method there are always gaps in terms of required information that need to be filled in by the "Top-down" method. Also, the top-down method uses data from multiple sources in a way suitable as the bottom-up method.
For the calculation of the Regional agricultural accounts the last method or "Mixed" method was used. In the calculation of the elements of Output of the “agricultural” industry the Bottom-up method was used in most cases, while for the calculation of the elements of Intermediate consumption, the Top-down method was used.
Regions
Regionalisation of economic accounts for agriculture is carried out in accordance with the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) ("Official Gazette of RM" No.158/2007). The Nomenclature provides a unique and uniform division of the territorial units at regional and local level and it represents a basis for collecting and processing data used for planning and managing the regional policy in the country. Data are presented at NUTS level 3, according to which there are 8 regions in Macedonia: Vardar Region, East, Southwest, Southeast, Pelagonia Region, Polog Region, Northeast and Skopje Region.