Tike is proactive when it comes to cooperation in the tangible and statistics industries both within Finland and internationally. Our major international partners are Eurostat, the European Commission, DG AGRI (Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development) and the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organisation). We also cooperate with statistics authorities in the surrounding area, chairing agricultural statistical compilation in the Nordic and Baltic-Nordic networks. Tike is Finland’s representative on the European Commission’s Standing Committee for Agricultural Statistics, and Tike’s Director of Statistical Services has been selected as a member of the Committee’s Partnership Group for 2010–2011.
Tike’s domestic cooperation revolves around the joint working group on statistics in the domain of the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture. In addition to Tike, the Ministry and Statistics Finland, the group and its subsections also cooperate with the Agency For Rural Affairs, the Finnish Food Safety Authority, the National Land Survey of Finland, the Finnish Forest Research Institute, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, and the Finnish Environment Institute. The working group was established in spring 2007 with the aim of setting policies and enhancing cooperation and coordination in statistical operations falling within the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture’s task domain.
Tike regularly organises cooperation meetings and interest group events, where we discuss customers’ information requirements and present new data collections, changes in data collections, improvements to statistical operations, and future trends. Our key partners are the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture (MMM), MTT Agrifood Research Finland, the Agency For Rural Affairs (Mavi), the Finnish Food Safety Authority (Evira), Fingrain (VYR), the Finnish Farmers' and Forest Owners' Union (MTK), the Central Union of Swedish-speaking Agricultural Producers in Finland (SLC), other industry interest groups, ProAgria, the Natural Resources and Environmental Research Consortium’s ENVDAT group, Statistics Finland, and industry companies and research institutions. Interest groups’ representatives are invited onto the external steering groups of major developmental projects.