Farm Expenses Price Index

Many of the prices collected for the Farm Expenses Price Index are also used in the Producers Price Index (PPI). The PPI is calculated quarterly from price quotes, which are collected mainly by the Commodity Price Survey. For the PPI, approximately 10,000 individual commodity items are surveyed from about 2,200 respondents. Prices are generally collected each quarter with the price at the 15th of the middle month of the quarter being measured. Prices may be obtained weekly, monthly , or annually depending on the nature of the item. Some commodities are not directly priced but are derived from other data sources. For example revenue and volume data is sometimes used to calculate unit prices. Some prices are not available at the time of price collection so a small number of prices are imputed each quarter. This is often done by carrying forward the previous quarter’s price. Other imputation is done by applying the price movements of similar categories of items. Other sources of price data used in the Farm Expenses Price Index and PPI include prices collected for the Consumers Price Index, Labour Cost Index , and Overseas Trade Index. Publicly available data is also used, including prices published in regular publications and online. en-NZ