The Farm Structure Survey provides harmonised data on the structure of agricultural holdings in the European Union, in particular on land use, livestock and farm labour force. Every ten years, a survey is carried out as an agricultural census. Two or three surveys are carried out between censuses in the form of a sample survey. The survey data helps to assess the agricultural situation across the EU, to monitor trends in the structure of holdings and to model the impact of external development of external developments of policy proposals.

Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - UK Government) is responsible for the collation and provision of the anonymised holding level dataset to Eurostat (the statistical office of the European Union). Responsibility for data collection in Wales lies with the Welsh Government. Much of the data is collected through the annual June Agricultural and Horticultural Survey with additional labour detail collected in farm structure survey years and other data through administrative sources.