Transcript Lack of a national agriculture statistical system

Presentation to the 20th Session AFCAS
conference delegates on the
State of the Food and Agriculture Statistics
System in South Africa
Moses Mnyaka
Statistics South Africa
11 December 2007
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Contents
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Introduction
Source of information and data producers
Influence on statistics by natural and political factors
Lack of a national agriculture statistical system
Coordination between the Ministry of Agriculture and
the Statistical Agency
F. Conclusions
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Introduction
• Importance of the agriculture sector in the South
African society.
• Growth in the economy contribution of non-agriculture
sectors
• Globalisation, global warming and climate
change
• Increase in food prices and input cost
• Bio-fuel strategy
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Source of information and data producers
• Various sources generate food and agricultural
statistics (amongst them, Stats SA, Ministry of
Agriculture and private sector)
• Stats SA collects data through short term surveys and
periodic censuses at enterprise and household level
• DoA collects monthly crop estimation data livestock data
and administrative data of horticulture
• Statistics compiled by DoA are used by Stats Sa to
calculate quarterly and annual GDP estimates
• Census data are used for benchmarking, planning,
monitoring and evaluation and research work
• Rainfall for past season lower than the long term mean
• Drought affected the SADC region
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Influence on agricultural statistics by
natural and political factors
• Drought affected the SADC region
• Diseases on livestock and poultry
• Lack of sufficient structures to monitor food prices
• A lot of farmers leave the industry due to the high input
cost
• Shredding of jobs and a shift from permanent
employment to seasonal/contract employment
• Land reform program had a negative effect in the
agriculture industry
• Refusals for participation due to poor service delivery
• The elections of the office bearers of the ruling party
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Lack of a national agriculture statistical system
• Concepts and definitions not being harmonised by
various data producers
• Sound methodology at best international practices could
be improved
• Lack of coherence and coordination on produced
statistics
• Shift of focus from official statistics to private sector
generated data by media
• Political instability, crime, lack of sufficient publicity led to
low response rate
• Response rate was fairly good on large enterprises
• Scarcity of expertise on the field of agricultural
statistics
• High staff turnover
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Coordination between the Ministry of
Agriculture and the statistical agency
• Limitation of resources (financial, personnel
and skills)
• Sharing of available resources
• Clear mandate of the two institutions in
dealing with agricultural statistics
• Like the other countries, challenge has been
which institution should be responsible for
agricultural statistics
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Conclusion
• Improvement of the quality of agricultural statistics through
collaboration, coordination and sharing of resources by
data producers
• Drafting and implementation of a 5 year strategy on
agricultural statistics
• Promotion of a national agriculture statistical system
• Partnership between various stakeholders
• Food security is of crucial importance over bio-fuel
industry
• Expansion of agricultural statistics to cover small scale
farming
• Formulation of an Advisory Committee on a
permanent basis
• Conducting of separate fishing, forestry and
agricultural services censuses parallel to the Census of
Agriculture
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THANK YOU
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