The main aim of the these guidelines is to provide assistance for developing a generally applicable monitoring system for the assessment of the socio-economic performance of farm forestry enterprises. Because the adoption and use of monitoring systems and accounting networks are at different phases in different countries at the moment, the guidelines do not aim for a fully standardised monitoring system at the European level. Instead, the guidelines were prepared to help to improve the base line of harmonisation for national and international development of farm forestry accounting.
The expected users of the guidelines include professionals working with the issues of socio-economics of farm forestry, as well as policy makers and forest economic researchers. Also teachers and lecturers of forestry accounting in universities and other schools with forestry economic education may found the guidelines useful for their course programmes.
The content of the guidelines is planned to help particularly the planning and development of accounting networks under various conditions. Chapter one shortly introduces the importance of farm forestry enterprises, and the problems of monitoring their economic performance. Chapter two discusses the definitions for farm forestry and prospects for extending EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (EU-FADN) to forestry. Chapters three and four demonstrate the problems of sampling and necessary organisational arrangements for creating a farm forestry accounting network, respectively.
Chapters five, six and seven form the core part of the guidelines, including the accounting of monetary and non-monetary information, outline of a database system as well as the examples of the outputs that can be derived from the accounting system. In chapter eight, the prospects for international comparability and harmonisation are discussed. The book ends, finally, with a summary chapter where major elements of the guidelines are summarised and practical implementation of the guidelines demonstrated.