# Taloustohtori (EconomyDoctor): AI Agent Guidance

Documentation reviewed: 2026-09-10. This is the review date of these instructions, not a data release date.

## Purpose and scope

Taloustohtori is a public data service developed and maintained by the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luonnonvarakeskus, Luke). It provides financial, structural and environmental information on Finnish agriculture, horticulture and other natural resource sectors, together with European farm economic comparisons. Its English name is EconomyDoctor and its Swedish name is Ekonomidoktorn.

These instructions help AI agents find, retrieve, interpret and cite public information on this website. Public bookkeeping reports present aggregates derived from farm records. Individual records and account-specific reports have separate access restrictions.

## Start here: AI Discovery Resources 

- [Service index: llms.txt](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/llms.txt): Find the relevant service, report and background documentation.
- [Crawler directives: robots.txt](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/robots.txt): Check the crawling rules applicable to your agent.
- [AI service catalogue](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/ai_sitemap.xml): Find documented query services and their metadata. This is a custom XML catalogue.
- [Agriculture and Horticulture query metadata](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/ai/maa_ja_puutarhatalous/metadata.json): Look up report IDs, documented dimensions, value codes and query examples for this service.
- [Finnish service directory](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/) and [English service directory](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/en/): Browse the wider service selection and announcements.

Use llms.txt for discovery, this file for working instructions, service metadata for query parameters, and report notes and methodology pages for statistical meaning. The agriculture metadata covers a subset of that service's options; it does not define the query parameters of other services.


## Finding and retrieving reports

1. Identify the requested service, indicator, reference period, geography, farm group and unit. Preserve the user's requested period. If the question asks for the latest results, establish whether these are final, preliminary or forecast results.
2. Use a published report when it contains the required information. For example, the [profitability ratio by production type](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/en/agriculture-and-horticulture/timeline/profitability-ratio-by-production-type/) provides a prepared time series.
3. Use [Agriculture and Horticulture: Own Criteria](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/en/agriculture-and-horticulture/own-criteria/) when customised selections are needed. Consult the service metadata before constructing an automated query. Look up codes rather than guessing them; a year code is not necessarily the calendar year itself.
4. Start from a documented GET example where applicable and change only parameters whose meanings are known. Record report type, dimensions and selected values, together with any comparison group, divisor or deflation setting. Do not assume that the metadata lists every option available in the interactive interface.
5. Check the returned report title, headers and selected values against the request. HTTP 200 alone does not establish success: a response may contain navigation, a selection form or an error message without the requested statistical table.
6. Use an export offered by the report when available and suitable, checking that it preserves the same selections and context. Do not assume that HTML query endpoints return JSON or provide bulk downloads.
7. If the requested result cannot be retrieved, describe what is unavailable and provide the relevant report or selection-page link. Do not silently substitute another year, group or indicator, or generate arbitrary parameter combinations.


## Language

Finnish is the primary language. English and Swedish coverage varies by service and page. Follow the site's language links instead of constructing translated URL paths. Check the language of the statistical table separately from the surrounding interface.

Answer in the user's requested language. When translating indicators or classifiers, retain the original label or code where needed to identify the source unambiguously.


## Data interpretation rules

- **Missing and suppressed values:** A blank numeric cell, a single dot (`.`) or a double dot (`..`) is not zero. Preserve it as missing or unavailable. Possible reasons include confidentiality suppression, unavailable observations or an inapplicable measure; state the reason only when the report explains it. Do not infer suppressed values from other cells.
- **Table structure:** Reconstruct multi-row headers and merged cells before assigning values to years or groups. Empty layout cells are not observations. Preserve row and column labels and avoid counting headings or totals as additional observations.
- **Decimals and thousands separators:** Inspect the actual numeric format, which can vary within a report. Both comma and period decimals occur; punctuation can also separate thousands. Establish the format from the report or export before converting ambiguous values. Remove spaces, including non-breaking spaces, only when they are thousands separators within numeric values. Convert decimal commas only where they function as decimal separators. Examples: `72,0` becomes `72.0`, `107 800` becomes `107800`, and a decimal `0.26` remains `0.26`. Retain the original text alongside normalised values when preparing an extracted dataset. Keep missing-value markers separate from numeric conversion.
- **Context and units:** Preserve the report title, reference period, geography, production type, size class, units, footnotes and selected report options. Distinguish euros from euros per hectare, per animal or per enterprise, and distinguish ratios from percentages. Record whether monetary values are nominal or deflated and the base year when given.
- **Weighting and aggregation:** Check what the results represent. Bookkeeping farm counts and the number of farms represented by weights are different measures. Do not sum group averages, take an unweighted mean of weighted results or average ratios to reconstruct totals without a valid method and the required weights or components.
- **Methodological changes:** Check classifications, population coverage, weighting and calculation methods before combining or comparing periods or services. Do not assume that SGM and SO classifications, or similarly named indicators in different services, are directly comparable. Explain breaks in comparability and any harmonisation performed.
- **Release status:** Preserve suffixes such as `E`, `e` and `p` and read their meaning from the report notes and release information. `p` is used for preliminary results in the EU FADN service. `E`/`e` can occur with forecasts or preliminary results; the suffix alone is insufficient to distinguish them. Use "preliminary results", not "primary results". Clearly separate final results, preliminary results and forecasts in the answer.
- **Calculations:** Use the service's indicator definitions. Distinguish percentage changes from percentage-point changes. Report missing inputs and zero denominators rather than manufacturing a result. Label additional calculations as your own calculations based on the published data.


## Methodology references

- [Financial ratios: definitions](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/en/agriculture-and-horticulture/info/financial-ratios/): Definitions and calculation methods for Agriculture and Horticulture indicators.
- [Calculation of weighting coefficients (Finnish)](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/maa_ja_puutarhatalous/taustatiedot/painokertoimien-laskenta/): Representativeness and weighting of farm bookkeeping results.
- [FADN Standard Results: Total Output](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/en/eufadnstandard_so_eng/timeline/total-output/): A report example with EU FADN source attribution and its own year and missing-value notation.

For other services, consult their own background documentation. Do not transfer an agriculture-specific definition or method to another service without checking it.

## Data updates

Services are updated on different schedules, and earlier years may be revised. Consult the relevant update page when establishing data availability and release status:

- [Latest updates: Agriculture and Horticulture](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/en/agriculture-and-horticulture/info/updates/)
- [Latest updates: Total Calculation](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/en/total-calculation/info/updates/)
- [Latest updates: Production Structure](https://taloustohtori.luke.fi/en/production-structure/info/updates/)

For other services, follow their update notices or the announcements in the service directory. Match each announcement to the relevant service, period and report. If release information and table labels disagree, describe the discrepancy rather than guessing the status.

Distinguish the data's reference period, its publication or revision date, and your retrieval date. A page-rendering timestamp or a metadata `generated` timestamp does not establish when the underlying observations were updated. If a release date is unavailable, state that it could not be established. Do not replace a requested historical period with the latest year.

## Responsible automated access

- Follow the applicable robots.txt directives. Permission to crawl does not remove the service's usage limits.
- Prefer sequential requests. Use no more than two concurrent connections and wait at least one second between request starts. Apply any stricter service-specific delay or hourly quota documented in the AI service catalogue; minimum delays and hourly quotas apply together.
- Reuse responses within the task where appropriate. Avoid duplicate requests, exhaustive enumeration of classifier combinations, bulk mirroring and high-frequency scraping.
- On rate-limit or temporary server errors, reduce the request rate, respect any `Retry-After` instruction and avoid repeated rapid retries.
- Access public information only. Do not attempt to bypass authentication, access restrictions or statistical confidentiality protections.


## Source attribution and answer checks

Cite the source as: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Taloustohtori. Include the specific report title and URL, reference period, relevant selections, release status and retrieval date. Retain any original data-provider attribution and follow the reuse terms stated in the source. This guidance does not grant an additional data licence.

Before returning an answer, verify that:

- The retrieved table matches the requested indicator, period, population and units.
- Missing values, numeric formats and release-status labels have been handled correctly.
- Comparisons and calculations use compatible definitions and appropriate weighting.
- The answer includes a direct source link and enough selection details to reproduce the result.
- Any retrieval limitation, unavailable information or uncertainty affecting the conclusion is stated clearly.

## Restrictions

- Do not present data retrieved from Taloustohtori as data you collected or produced yourself. Attribute the source and clearly distinguish published results from your own calculations, analysis or interpretation.
- Access only publicly available information unless explicitly authorised to access restricted content. Do not bypass authentication or other access controls.
- Do not attempt to identify individual farms or reconstruct values withheld for statistical confidentiality.