What information is needed?

1
What information is needed?

• Farm income only a partial view of overall
  household income.
• Panel Data
• Cross-sectional periods
• Number of time periods
• Smoothes out farm income fluctuations
• Shift away from commodity production as household
  unit
• Why is this information important?
• Statistics can be used as policy management tools
• To assess how other policies apart from
  agricultural ones are affecting these households

2
What information is available?

• Macroeconomic -V- Microeconomic
• Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN)
• Off-farm / Non-farm income is often missing
• Agricultural Resource Management Study (ARMS)
• Small farmers those with off farm-income
  regularly excluded
• No panel data ? limitation
• Difficult to compare the total income of farm
  households against other households even on an
  aggregate level.
• Tax incentives and cut backs in the agricultural
  sector make it inaccurate to use tax files and
  other related data as a source of information.

3
What are the obstacles to obtaining and using the
desired information?

• Three obstacles
• 1. Administrative
• Miscommunication between ministries and
  statistical agencies.
• Costs (particularly in the case of new surveys)
• Frequency
• Legal / confidentiality difficulties preventing
  the merging of data.
• 2. Technical
• False representation on surveys due to small
  number of farms.
• Wealth information even with International
  Financial Reporting Standards.
• 3. Political
• Disagreement on content of surveys leads to void
  or false responses. Hence affecting the rate and
  quality of responses.

4
How can these obstacles be overcome?

• Legal obligations have been implemented by
  government audit offices.
• Changes in policy prompt changes in data
  collection systems.
• Reduce data collection costs. Eg Telephone
  Internet surveys
• Cost - Benefit would improve if surveys covered a
  broader scope.
• Pressure put on political figures who influence
  policy and funding decisions.
• Improved communication all parties involved

5
How would such information help policy makers?

• To assess the nature, cause and extent of income
  problems.
• To define policy objectives with measurable
  targets.
• Design new programmes for anticipated income
  problems.
• Improve current programmes.
• Compare alternative options.

6
Conclusion

• Public accountability needs to be reviewed at a
  national and international level.
• Process of improvement is long term, the sooner
  work on improvements begins the sooner things
  will get better.
• Co-operation between countries needed to move
  forward.
• Inter-Secretariat Working Group on Agricultural
  Statistics (IWG-AGRI)
• Main burden of improvements still lies on the
  shoulders of national Governments.