(Item 4 of the Agenda)
(Item 4a of the Agenda)
21. Mr Jairo Castano, APCAS Secretary, introduced Document APCAS/08/3 "Overview of FAO's Activities in Asia and the Pacific Region since the 21st Session of APCAS". He informed that each year a substantial amount of time was being devoted to the preparation and publication of the annual "Selected Indicators of Food and Agricultural Development in the Asia-Pacific Region". Copies of the publication were made available to the delegates of the Session. The Commission noted that other activities included the publication of the "Report of the Twenty-First Session of APCAS" held in Phuket, Thailand in September 2006 and the preparations and organization of the Twenty-Second Session of APCAS with the Government of Malaysia.
22. The Commission took note of the technical backstopping provided to the following projects: GCP/RAS/184/JPN "Strengthening Regional Data Exchange System on Food and Agricultural Statistics in Asia and Pacific Countries (RDES)", a regional project, and GCP/AFG/042/EC "Support to the Food, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Information Management and Policy Unit (FAAHM) in Developing an Agricultural Statistics and Market Information System - Phase II (Afghanistan)".
23. The Commission was pleased to know that six Technical Cooperation Projects (TCPs) and one Unilateral Trust Fund (UTF) project proposals were formulated between 2007 and mid-2008. These included: (a) improving livestock statistics in Nepal; (b) training on agricultural census methodology and time series analysis in Pakistan; (c) assistance in the formulation of a project for conducting an agricultural census in Cambodia; (d) monitoring of the food market developments in the Asia-Pacific Region for rapid response to soaring food prices; (e) strengthening of capacity for the statistical assessment of rice situation and outlook in Lao PDR; and (f) decentralization of agricultural statistics in Timor-Leste.
24. The Commission appreciated the successful organization of an "Expert Consultation on Farmers' Income Statistics" in December 2007 wherein ten papers were presented and 16 experts from member countries, Eurostat, US Department of Agriculture, FAO Headquarters and an FAO Consultant participated.
25. The Commission noted that in relation to the Independent External Evaluation (IEE) of FAO, an evaluation of FAO's statistical system and its databases and data systems had been undertaken. An independent mission visited stakeholder institutions as well as three member countries in Asia (China, Thailand and Viet Nam) in early 2008. The mission discussed the findings in a stakeholders' workshop in May 2008.
26. The Commission was informed that an important activity associated with forestry statistics was FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA). The results of the recently completed FRA 2005, the most comprehensive assessment of forests and forestry to date - in terms of the number of countries, people involved and scope - was published in 2006. CD-ROMs of FRA 2005 were made available to the delegates of the Session. The follow-up FRA 2010 was officially launched in March 2008. The Commission noted that the website http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra2010/en/ provided a full range of information about the forest resources by country, sub-region and region and at global levels.
27. The Commission noted that in the last two years, RAP Fisheries Group (RAPI) participated in several regional meetings and workshops on fishery statistics organized by regional organizations, e.g. Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC). The Commission noted that several projects relating to fishery statistics had been backstopped and implemented by RAPI. Among these projects were the FishCode STF project on "Fishery Information Gathering for Fishery Policy and Management" in Thailand and a TCP project on "Addressing the Quality of Information on Inland Fisheries in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand". RAPI had additionally backstopped a GCP project on "Marine Fishing Vessel Census" in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. A major component of the statistical work performed by RAPI in fishery statistics was the preparation of the biennial publication "Status and Potential of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Asia and the Pacific".
28. The Commission appreciated the continued close cooperation with UN and international organizations involved in food and agricultural statistics in the Asia and Pacific region. FAO was represented in meetings on statistics, including those organized by ESCAP. Further, the FAO Statistics Division also continued to play its due role in the revision of international classifications like CPC, ISIC, ISCO and SITC undertaken by UNSD in the last few years.
29. The Commission was informed that in 2006, the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD), the World Bank and FAO Country Statistics Service undertook the preparation of a sourcebook on indicators for monitoring and evaluation of development projects and programmes in agriculture and rural development. Highlights of this major work were presented under Agenda Item 6.
(Item 4b of the Agenda)
30. Document APCAS/08/4 The "Final Draft Report on the FAO/Japan Project GCP/RAS/184/JPN - Strengthening Regional Data Exchange System on Food and Agricultural Statistics in Asia and Pacific Countries" was presented to the Commission by Mr Romeo Recide.
31. The Commission was reminded that 16 member countries participated in this project and its precursor GCP/RAS/171/JPN "Improvement of Agricultural Statistics in Asia and Pacific Countries", which was undertaken upon the initiative of APCAS when it met in Tokyo, Japan in 1996.
32. The Commission was pleased that the project successfully achieved its main milestone of setting up a common framework for the Regional Data Exchange System (RDES) by developing a website for exchange of data and information dissemination (http://www.faorap-apcas.org) and standardising production and production-related data for 19 commodities (rice paddy, wheat, maize, cereals, cassava, potatoes, pulses, groundnuts, soybean, seed cotton, sugar cane, tea, cattle, pig, sheep, goat, chicken, milk (total) and hen eggs) on a calendar year basis, following concepts and definitions consistent with those of FAO. The "Guidelines on Standardization of the Regional Data Exchange System" was prepared for this purpose. The usefulness of the RDES was enhanced with the inclusion of metadata on the methodology, concepts, definitions and other useful information about the agricultural statistical series of the participating countries.
33. The Commission noted that the RDES national Focal Point meetings and technical consultations served as the principal means for strengthening the national capacity to analyse, use and disseminate food and agricultural statistics in support of national agricultural development policy and planning, including associated food security and poverty alleviation concerns. The use of Focal Points had proved to be an effective modality in carrying out project activities. The Commission noted with satisfaction that the Focal Points were instrumental in the formation of a good network of professionals in APCAS countries. Moreover, the Commission was pleased to know that over the Project life, from February 2003 to December 2007, the RDES site had logged around 2.7 million hits and more than 280 000 visitors.
34. The Commission was informed that at the close of the Project, the Focal Points recommended that: (a) the existing methodologies for collection and processing of data be improved; (b) new and modern techniques in data collection, analysis and dissemination be applied and the corresponding capacity-building programmes be conceptualized and implemented; and (c) the RDES in Asia and the Pacific continue to be maintained because many countries still lacked websites and internet-enabled database systems on food and agricultural statistics despite the advancement in information technology.
35. The Commission noted that Japan believed that promoting reliable statistical data in all countries and sharing these data among them were indispensable in ensuring global food security, hence it supported this APCAS initiative. The Commission acknowledged the pivotal role of the Government of Japan in supporting and steering the successful completion of this project.
(Item 4c of the Agenda)
36. The APCAS Secretary introduced Document APCAS/08/5 "Expert Consultation on Farmers' Income Statistics". The Commission noted that the Expert Consultation conducted in Bangkok in December 2007 aimed to: (a) identify methodologies for collection and possible integration of surveys to obtain farmers' income data; (b) review processing of farmers' income data and identify appropriate strategies for imputation and analysis; and (c) recommend optimal strategies for improving the collection and analysis of farmers' income data. Fourteen Experts from APCAS member countries, Eurostat and the US Department of Agriculture, and two observers from Thailand participated in the Expert Consultation.
37. The Commission noted the following recommendations of the Consultation: (a) FAO should increase awareness among national governments on the use of farmers' income data, including the need for setting aside funds for data collection, analysis and dissemination, either from government or alternative sources of funds; (b) efforts should be made to define the core data requirements that provide consistency and comparability among collections across countries and over time, including the development of FAO guidelines on the conduct of farm income related surveys and imputation methods; (c) accounting frameworks like the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) and the System of National Accounts (SNA) should be considered when measuring farm household incomes; (d) a pilot study should be undertaken across countries to assess the extent of under-reporting of farm income data and to estimate correction factors; (e) FAO should explore the possibility of conducting a study or a workshop to identify methods that could be used efficiently to collect farm income data from areas where access was difficult; (f) efforts should be made to improve the accessibility and feedback of information to all stakeholders, including farmers, as a way of incentive to provide reliable information; (g) a review should be undertaken on the use of information technology in farm income surveys from collection to analysis and dissemination of data, assessing its potential applications in Asia-Pacific countries.
(Item 4d of the Agenda)
38. Document No. APCAS/08/6 "Highlights of the Fourth International Conference on Agricultural Statistics (ICAS - IV)" was presented to the Commission by Mr Hiek Som. He informed that the Conference in Beijing from 22 - 24 October 2007 was the fourth in this series of international conferences. The Commission noted that ICAS conferences aimed to: (a) bring together agricultural statisticians on a global scale to exchange current practices and new developments; and (b) transfer, where applicable, these practices and developments to the developing countries. The Commission was pleased that the participation of developing countries in this Conference was supported by travel grants to over 50 participants from Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America from the sponsors of the Conference.
39. The Commission was informed that ICAS - IV, which had as theme "Strategic Integration of Agricultural Statistical Framework with Other Measures of Economic Development", succeeded in attracting the participation of about 350 statisticians from over 60 countries. Compared with previous conferences, ICAS - IV had the largest participation.
40. The Commission was pleased that the Conference covered wide-ranging and interesting topics on agricultural statistics. The papers primarily focused on the fundamental issues related to the development of agricultural statistics within an integrated national statistical system. They stressed the importance of statistical harmonization and the need for comparability among countries in order to promote wide use of agricultural statistics. The Conference was organized along seven thematic issues consisting of integration of agricultural statistics, methodology and technology, agriculture and rural statistics development, agricultural surveys and censuses, data quality and comparability, new domains and dimensions, and challenges in data needs. The Agenda also included roundtable discussions on the future of agricultural statistics and on whether statistics on agriculture and rural dimension were properly represented in national statistics.
41. The Commission was informed that 70 papers were presented. Contributors included European Countries (14), Asia and the Pacific (22, including 12 from China), Africa (9), North America (6), Latin America (4) and FAO (9). The Commission commended the Conference organizers for securing wide participation of experts with representation from all regions of the world which substantially contributed to the success of the Conference.
42. The Commission was informed that the detailed programme together with papers, abstracts and presentations were available at http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/icas/. The Commission was further informed that the next ICAS would be held in Africa and hosted by Uganda in 2010.
(Item 4e of the Agenda)
43. The Commission endorsed the appeal of the APCAS Secretary for donors to support follow-up activities on the recommendations made in the Expert Consultation that would foster increased awareness on the use of farmers' income data.
