73. Two documents were considered under this agenda item. Document STAT/FOOD/8 entitled “Agricultural Statistics for Food Security Analysis: The Indonesian Perspective” was presented by Mr. Noer Soetrisno and Document No. STAT/FOOD/9 entitled “Use of Agricultural Statistics in Support of Strengthening Food Policy Issues” was presented by Mr. Dibakar Paudyal.
74. Presenting his paper, Mr. Soetrisno mentioned that Indonesia had developed an agricultural statistics system, which had been used for food policy formulation and more specifically food security analysis. The production forecasts of food crops, rice in particular, were made available following a predetermined schedule and conducted in a consistent manner. The production forecast and other statistics were produced by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the central agency for statistics responsible for producing statistics in Indonesia. The production forecast was prepared jointly by the CBS and the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and other relevant institutions.
75. The production forecast was made available every four months. The first was made in February covering forecast for current year production and preliminary estimate of last year’s production; the second was made in June, during the second planting as well as the main harvest of the year; the third forecast was made in the month of October when the estimates for the past year also got finalized. This sequential forecast system was widely accepted for food policy decision. A satellite assessment system for paddy crop in Indonesia was being developed.
76. Mention was made that the consumption data were obtained from the household expenditure surveys conducted every three years through the National Socio-Economic Survey. Trade and stock data were also regularly reported and made available with a time lag of three months. Different surveys provided information on stocks at different levels for different food items.
77. The Experts were apprised that price and marketing statistics were available regularly on weekly, monthly and quarterly basis depending on the importance of the items. Data on cost of production of food crops were also available from surveys.
78. It was reported that by using food balance sheets and household survey data including indicators of food availability, nutritional status and desirable dietary pattern index, the status of food security could be evaluated. Based on the consumption data, household food security index for different provinces could be estimated.
79. It was also reported that various institutions used the statistics for different policy analysis. For food the Ministry of Food and Horticulture produced Balance of Food Trade, Commodity Flow and Stock for short-term and medium-term policy formulation.
80. To handle the impact of recent economic crisis, special cheap rice sale had been introduced nationwide in addition to the existing social assistance programmes and other food aids. To support this operation the listing of poor household was provided by National Family Planning Board. However, the listing of poor households was found difficult to do due to the dynamic and complicated nature of urban poor.
81. It was also mentioned that to strengthen the program for food security the National Food and Nutrition Surveillance System (NFNSS) was intensified to provide an early warning system for the government at lowest level (district) for immediate action when food shortages occurred.
82. In the discussion that followed, the Experts cited the general problems which policy analysts encountered with data. The Experts observed that problems related to data gaps, on one hand, and duplication on the other, may be addressed by closer coordination between the statistical system and the policy makers.
83. The Experts sought clarification on a number of issues raised in the paper. The recent sudden over-dependence on imports was explained by the bad crops in crop year 1996/97. The low consumption figures mentioned in the paper could have been the result of real shift in consumption patterns or by bias generated by consumption studies done on low income groups as part of the process to identify food insecure groups. In relation to the last issue, the Experts recommended that a national team for food security monitoring be formed in countries with the primary function of tracking the progress of food security programs.
84. Presenting the document on use of agricultural statistics in support of strengthening food policy issues, Mr. Dibakar Paudyal apprised the Experts about the existing arrangements for collecting and analysing data required for food policy in Nepal. It was also explained that there was much scope for increasing the contents and quality of available data.
85. The Experts noted that presently the Agricultural Statistics Division (ASD) of the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) carried out the function of collecting current statistics of crops and livestock up to forecast levels. However, the problem was of reduced manpower than what was previously with the then ASD. Secondly, the more vigorous field supervision part ensuring quality of the agricultural statistics had drastically diluted due to reduced manpower and unattractive allowances offered to the supervisor staff.
86. It was also noted that bringing out the final data was the responsibility of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) since 1993. The CBS also suffered from the problem mentioned above. Currently an Asian Development Bank-funded Crops and Livestock Survey Project was being implemented by the CBS. The objective of this project was to provide estimates of crop and livestock production. Hopefully, this project would improve the situation which would help deliver better agricultural statistics in right time for addressing policy issues. As the development workers and policy makers would like to have current agricultural statistics by variety, status of irrigation, input use, breed type, husbandry features like commercial or non-commercial, such detailed data gaps might exist even in future.
87. It was mentioned that the CBS conducted National Sample Census of Agriculture (NSCA) and Population Census and Demography every ten years. The type of information on agriculture, population and demography has met requirement of policy makers. The reliability was questionable, at times.
88. It was noted that the Department of Irrigation and the Agricultural Development Bank, Nepal (ADB/N) were the main source of data. One serious problem of data was that they were grossly over-reported.
89. Foreign Trade Statistics were brought out by the Trade Promotion Center (TPC). The data were available only in value and not in quantity. The other problem was that the data were seldom available in one place and when collected from different sources, were often significantly different.
90. The major institution offering market and price information was the Marketing Development Division (MDD). The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) also offered price data usually in index form. Those wishing to use the actual price might access data from the Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI) and the Ministry of Supplies (MOS). Upon demand, Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) and Agricultural Inputs Corporation (AIC) also provided information on prices of food-grains, fertilizer and seeds they handle.
91. The Experts were informed that recent trends on market information were seen to be valuable to many. The major types of marketing information comprise the prices of commodities at different levels i.e. wholesale, retail, primary markets and the border and farm-gate level. The data sets, which gave rise to national average were not truly representative.
92. The Economic Analysis and Statistics Division (EASD) of the MOA was the main institution to collect data on cost of production. But they do not provide methodologies. Commodity specific institutions also collect such information. But with few exceptions, these would not be available for addressing policy issues.
93. ADB/N also provided information required for agricultural credit analysis. The most important data included loan disbursed, collected for various categories of crops by banking area at different geographic locations. Data on loans by target group i.e. small farmers for specific purpose loan by periods of lending was also provided.
94. By and large, with reasonable amount of effort the amount of credit flow to farmers by these institutions could be assessed. What cannot be known is the dealings with the informal sector.
95. The Experts noted that the cadastral survey was the major source of statistics for area used for different purposes. To provide insight into policy issue pertaining to land use systems, information and statistics generated by the Land Resources Mapping Project (LRMP) based on aerial photography and satellite imagery were widely used.
96. Research related information was available in scattered form.
97. National farm management surveys were not regularly done in Nepal. Therefore no statistics were available.
98. The source of climatic data was the Dept. of Meteorological Services. The collection of data did not necessarily conform to agricultural base.
99. The data required for policy-related issues could not be easily located or accessed. The data gaps could be in the form of complete non-availability of a required series by type or missing data within a series.
100. The measures suggested for improving access to data mentioned were: (i) a central agency issued data sets in published form including or through electronic media; (ii) compilation and dissemination of statistics collected by other agencies; (iii) citation of sources and methodologies; and (iv) commissioned study, particularly involving large volume of statistics to be published and sold.
101. The Experts recommended that a network of data support system should be established, accuracy and reliability particularly of area statistics must be improved for right decisions.
102. Special surveys needed to be conducted on a 5-yearly basis so that population dynamics was noted earlier.
103. Details of collection methods for yield, cost of production and agricultural price, precision of estimates, standard errors, crop cut methods and degree of reliability required to be carefully handled.
104. Necessary steps should be taken to collect the climatic data required for agricultural sector.
105. The ongoing project in the CBS with the support of Asian Development Bank on Crop and Livestock Statistics would be helpful to produce statistics on varieties. CBS should explore possibility of making these systems sustainable.
106. Very clear institutional arrangement for providing information/statistics of irrigation water and developing methodologies should be made. Any effort to precisely define and strengthen relevance of high quality information and database should be supported.
107. Volume and value should both be precisely reported for trade.
108. Finally, the Experts recommended creation of a high level body for instituting a dynamic information collection and dissemination center which should be developed as electronic data preservation and supply bank to improve data availability for food policy.
