Regional Programme of Statistics in the Mediterranean Region
Contrat : ENPI/2010/234-479
Report on the National Users-Producers Seminar on Agricultural Statistics in Jordan
Identity of the document:
Subject / National Agricultural Statistics Development Strategy in JordanCountry / Jordan
Dates / March 13 2013
Author / Hassan SERGHINI (Key Expert - Agriculture Statistics) / Date / 29.05.2013
Recipient / DEVCO/EUROSTAT / Version / Draft 3
1. Introduction
In the framework of the Global Strategy to Improve Agriculture and Rural Statistics, promoted by international organizations, MEDSTAT III has contributed to the preparation of national strategy for the development of agriculture statistics in Jordan.
The objective of this seminar, organized in close collaboration with the Department of Statistics, was to validate this strategy. This seminar was the occasion for producers and users of agriculture statistics in Jordan to discuss agriculture statistics in general, to comment on the strategy documents and to propose modifications. At the end of the seminar the audience made some recommendations.
MEDSTAT III facilitated the event in collaboration with DoS. It provided the facilities for the meeting. The seminar was chaired by Dr. Radi Tarawneih, General Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture.
2. Program
Ø Opening of the Day by the General Director of DoS
Ø Presentation of MEDSTAT III programme
Ø Presentation of the agricultural statistical programme (DoS)
Ø Presentation of the diagnosis of the National Agricultural Statistics system in Jordan (Agriculture-Key Expert)
Ø The action plan proposed for the period 2013-2022 (MEDSTAT III Key Expert).
Ø Discussant from DoS
Ø Discussant from the Ministry of Agriculture
Ø Open discussion by the Participants
Ø Conclusions of the seminar (General Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture).
3. Participants:
81 persons attended the event. The number of participants was from:
DoS: 37
The MoA: 12;
The Ministry of Water and Irrigation: 2
The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation: 2
The Ministry of Industry and Trade: 2;
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs: 1;
The Ministry of health: 1;
Department of Lands and Surveys: 1;
Greater Amman Municipality: 3;
National Center for Agricultural Research and Extension: 2;
Jordan Valley Authority: 1;
Central Bank: 1;
Agricultural Credit Corporation: 2;
Customs Department: 1;
4 Jordanian universities: 5 (1 participant for each university);
Farmers Union: 1;
Union of poultry farmers: 1;
Syndicate of agricultural materials dealers: 1;
Agricultural Engineers Association: 1;
Ghad Newspaper: 1;
AITRS: 2;
EU Delegation: 1;
The list of participants is in annex.
4. Opening of the Day by the general Director of DoS
Mr Fethi Nsour, General Director of the Department of Statistics, welcomed the participants and thanked the EU and its MEDSTAT III programme for its distinctive efforts and support to statistics in all areas (technical assistance, training, workshops and study visits) and for preparing the national strategy for the development of agricultural statistics in Jordan.
The 43rd Session of the Statistical Commission of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (New York, 2012), discussed the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics. A regional workshop was organized by FAO in collaboration with the Arab Institute for Training and Statistical Research to explain this strategy and to adopt it at national level. MEDSTAT III was requested to prepare a proposal for a national strategy for the development of agriculture statistics in Jordan. Dr. Hassan Serghini prepared this proposal which was discussed during this day.
The agriculture statistics strategy aims to improve the quality of agriculture data, to expand their scope and to produce data that are consistent with international standards. It also aims to boost coordination between all producers of agriculture data in order to avoid conflicting data sets and to use available resources efficiently. The strategy covers 10 years (2013-2022).
The Department of Statistics provides data on agricultural aspects of plant and animal production and provides food balance sheets and all indicators related to these aspects according to international methodologies.
Dr. Radi Tarawneih, General Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, thanked the European Commission for its support to Jordanian agriculture and MEDSTAT III and Dr Hassan Serghini for the elaboration of the National Strategy for Developing Agriculture Statistics. He considered that this strategy comes at the right time, and offers to Jordan an interesting framework for the coordination of all the stakeholders of agriculture statistics and for improving the quality of agriculture statistics.
5. Presentation of MEDSTAT III programme
The key expert presented an overview of the MEDSTAT III programme, including its objectives, components and in particular, the activities undertaken in the Agriculture statistics sector:
Ø A task force and workshop on the Global Strategy to Improve Agriculture and Rural Statistics;
Ø Workshop on Improving Data Quality in Agriculture Statistics;
Ø Training Course on Developing and Using Questionnaires for Agricultural Surveys;
Ø Workshop on Improving Agricultural Price Statistics of the Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs);
Ø Workshop on Area Sampling Frame;
Ø Study Visit on use of Geographical Information Systems for Agriculture Statistics in the Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs);
Ø In collaboration with FAO: a Regional Workshop on Sampling for Agricultural Censuses and Surveys.
The KE also mentioned the technical assistance missions carried out in Jordan on:
- Area sampling frame and;
- The elaboration of a national strategy for developing agricultural statistics.
6. Presentation of the agriculture statistics programme (DoS)
The Director of Agriculture statistics presented the DoS programme for agriculture statistics. He presented:
Ø The objectives and the contents of the main agriculture statistics;
Ø The methods used for data collection;
Ø The steps of the execution of the surveys;
Ø The uses of the agriculture statistics;
Ø The list of agricultural surveys and the sizes of their samples;
Ø The list of surveys that DoS aspires to undertake in the future;
Ø The weaknesses in agriculture statistics that the national strategy for the development of agricultural statistics in Jordan has highlighted;
Ø The national strategy recommendation for tackling these weaknesses;
Ø The composition and the task of the permanent panel for agriculture statistics;
Ø The project of the development of agriculture statistics proposed by the strategy, with dedicated budget;
Ø The DoS publications of agriculture statistics.
7. Presentation of the diagnosis of the National Agriculture Statistics system in Jordan
The key expert presented the diagnosis of the agriculture statistics system in Jordan, carried out by means of desk research and interviews with the main producers and users. This presentation included the following items:
Ø Methodology used for elaborating the strategy;
Ø A description of the Agriculture Statistics system;
Ø The organization of the production of agriculture statistics;
Ø Human and materiel resources;
Ø User needs;
Ø Agriculture statistics available;
Ø Data quality;
Ø Gap between production and needs;
Ø Diagnostic conclusions.
The diagnosis was presented in the first part of the document delivered for the meeting and had been previously discussed with Jordanian counterparts. The diagnosis established a complete analysis of the organization of the agriculture statistics system:
- The entire chain of agriculture statistics production;
- The analysis of the agriculture statistics program and its products;
- Degree of satisfaction of the requirements of decision makers on data needed for the evaluation of policy options, the results and the impacts of agricultural policies and to correctly comprehend the capabilities, resources and constraints associated with this production;
- The analysis of data collection, processing, analysis, dissemination;
- The analysis of the methodologies of statistical operations.
The diagnosis pointed out the weaknesses and the strengths of the agriculture statistics system in Jordan. The strength can be summarized as follow:
- The law related to statistical studies guarantees the confidentiality of the individual information collected during any survey and agriculture statistics are clearly under the responsibility of the DoS;
- A permanent committee of experts for agriculture statistics prepares the scope of work for collecting statistics, defines the agencies responsible for collecting statistics and reviews statistical data before its release;
- The staff in charge of agriculture statistics can implement the development and the modernization of this system. This staff consists of 23 people of which 21 have bachelor degrees. 70% of them are under forty and only 2 are above fifty;
- DoS undertakes every year an important set of agriculture surveys. These surveys give Jordan relatively accurate data on the production of major crops, on the structure by age, sex and breed of livestock, poultry production (white meat and eggs), honey production, on the production prices of major grains, fruit and vegetables, on use o input, investments, capital formation and on uses of the production in quantities and values, and farm revenues;
- Surveys use international methodologies. All statistics produced are relevant. Timeliness and punctuality for agriculture statistics are generally satisfactory.
The weaknesses
- Data quality is difficult to assess since CVs are not calculated, statistical procedures are not documented and non-sampling errors are not assessed;
- No predetermined schedule is available for agriculture statistics publications;
- Little data analysis is performed;
- No procedure for provision of micro-data is established;
- The gap between the needs and the supply of agricultural data is important:
o Crop production forecasts are not available;
o No objective estimates of crop and plantation yields;
o No data on animal production (meat, milk, hides, cheese ...) or on by-products of agricultural production (straw, manure ...);
o No data on cost of production of crop and livestock production;
o No data on the transformation of agricultural products on the farm and Agricultural and non-agricultural farmers’ income;
o No data on the structure of agricultural production units and their evolution.
8. The action plan proposed for the period 2013-2022
The key expert’s presentation on a proposal for the action plan included the following items:
Ø The objectives of the strategy;
Ø The strategy components;
Ø The proposed statistical operations: censuses, structural surveys, crop surveys, animal production surveys, market surveys and other surveys;
Ø Methodological and quality improvement: sampling, frames and quality control and documentation;
Ø The institutions: the necessity for a close cooperation between agriculture statistics producers in particular between DoS and the MoA;
Ø Human, materiel and financial resources and technical assistance needed for the implementation of the proposed strategy;
Ø The schedule for the implementation of the operations;
Ø An estimation of the budget;
Ø Conclusions.
The objective of the strategy is to provide a comprehensive and coherent response to the weaknesses of the agriculture statistics system and to meet users’ priority needs with international standards. To achieve these objectives, it is necessary to:
- Improve the coverage and the quality of agriculture statistics,
- Strengthen the capacities for data collection, analysis and dissemination;
- Define the role of each partner of the agriculture statistics system and;
- Integrate agriculture surveys and the agriculture statistics system into the national statistical system.
The action plan is based on:
- A minimum set of core data;
- The integration of agriculture into national statistical systems;
- The sustainability of the agriculture statistics system;
- Proposals for the development of agriculture statistics according to international standards and practices;
- A programme of agriculture statistics that meet priority needs of users.
The strategy is built around the following components:
- The extension of the coverage of agriculture statistics;
- Strengthening the capacity to collect, analysis and disseminate agriculture statistics;
- Improving methodologies used for all surveys;
- Integration of the agriculture statistics system with the national statistical system;
- Integrated set of statistical operations for the next 10 years, responding to the needs of the users;
- Strengthening the visibility of agriculture statistics;
- Human resources training;
The proposed statistical operations are structured around:
- Censuses (every 10 years): General agricultural census, plantation census, greenhouse census and irrigation census;
- Structural surveys (every 5 years): cost of production of the main agricultural products and use of production factors by agricultural activity, agricultural products uses, organized poultry, bee production, aquaculture, sea fishing
- Annual surveys: crop areas and yields, forecast of olive production, livestock, bee/honey production, aquaculture, sea fishing, organized poultry, nurseries;
- Special structural surveys (every 5 years): organized poultry, camel, objective yield of forage, straw and stubble, field losses, quarterly distribution of agricultural production, urban agriculture;
- Marketing surveys: on farm output and input prices (every 3 months), wholesale prices for fruits and vegetables (every week), slaughterhousees (every week), Marketing of agricultural products.
The improvement of the quality of agriculture statistics is at the center of this strategy:
- Drawing special samples for localized crops;
- Evaluation of the use of multiple frames (area and list frames);
- Monitoring statistical quality control of data collection, processing and dissemination and establishing procedures for quality control investigations with samples of 2 to 3%;
- Documentation of all the procedures and methodologies used;
- Review and test of all questionnaires;
- Increase the visibility of agriculture statistics by reviewing the presentation of the publications (regular and timely) and by the analysis of the results of the surveys.
The strategy can be improved also by:
- Developing synergies among producers and users of agriculture statistics to avoid duplication, conflicting data and inefficient use of scarce resources;
- Focusing the coordination on using the same standards and nomenclature and on the allocation of responsibilities;
- Developing cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture which has a large expertise in subject manner and DoS which has large expertise in statistical methodologies and sampling. This cooperation could cover the elaboration of questionnaires, the execution of some surveys in the field such as the collect of price data and the provision by DoS of methodological advice to the MoA for surveys that it undertakes for its special needs;