摘要:In compliance with the Rule (CE) n. 571/88 and subsequent amendments, with the year 2007 the plan of sample farm structure surveys established for the period 1988-2007 finishes. These surveys, started in 1967, are carried out every two or three years and approximately every ten years (1970/71, 1979/1980, 1989/1990 e 1999/2000) a farm structure survey as agricultural census is carried out. Between two agricultural censuses, in the most part of the Member States the farm structure surveys are carried out in sampling way, generally through direct interview of holder of agricultural holding, which is the observation’s unit. In order to guarantee continuity and comparison in the time and space, the community rules fix the basic criteria for an observation’s field equal for all the Member States (universe UE). Having such bases, the present paper intends to show not only the complex and considerable process of restructuring of the sample methodology carried out by ISTAT and continuously modified during the period 1990-2005, but also, through an analysis of the sample plans related to the survey carried out in the above period, to underlight the points of convergence and divergence between one survey and the subsequent, with a short statistical analysis of the related results concerning some main characteristics of the holding.