Improving Agricultural Statistics in the COMCEC Region
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Crop statistics, livestock and animal production statistics, agricultural price statistics as well as
producer price statistics, agricultural census results, national account statistics, trade statistics
etc. are all available on the web pages of TurkStat. Additionally, there are other statistics
relating to organic farming, the consumption of fertilizers and pesticides on MFAL’s website.
For forestry statistics, in Turkey the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs is responsible for
annual forestry statistics, which are available in hardcopy or on the Ministry’s website. All of
TurkStat’s statistical releases, tables and databases are made available via the internet, free of
charge. The website is available in both Turkish and English, and is relatively easy to navigate.
Addresses of web sites related to agricultural statistics are listed in Annex 5.70
Much of the statistical data on agriculture (crops, livestock, market prices, use of cereals, price
indices, and value added in the accounts and national aggregates) is published by the TurkStat
in its various annual publications, as follows:
 Statistical Indicators 1923-2012
 Fishery Statistics, 2012
 Selected Indicators (Province) 2012
 Foreign Trade Statistics 2012
 The Statistical Yearbook 2012
 Forestry Statistics 2012
 Turkey in Statistics 2012
TurkStat produces a large majority of official statistics. With the Turkish Statistical Law which
went into affect on 10 November 2005, the Statistical Council was set up and Official Statistics
Programmme was prepared for periods 2006-2011 and 2012-2016. The statistical law has
provisions for statistical methodologies, data quality, statistics release calenders and
confidentiality. The statistical law assigned a coordination role as well as major
responsibilities to TurkStat in the above areas.71
At the beginning of each year TurkStat publishes in advance, a release calendar for all official
statistics, not just for its own statistics. The publication of the national data release calendar is
stipulated by the Official Statistics Programme and is additionally mentioned in the Statistics
Law of Turkey. Any amendment to a pre-announced publication date in the release calendar is
published as early as possible in advance, to facilitate transparency. Equal access is explicitly
stipulated in Article 12 of the Statistics Law of Turkey; the release calendar in the Statistical
Programme.72 Errors in data collection are analysed and documented. Quality control
procedures are implemented after surveys are conducted, for selected units from each survey.
During this process, Computer Aided Telephone Interview (CATI) is used to measure the
quality of the surveys. Significant efforts are made to reduce these errors.
Statistical news releases published regularly by TurkStat include very little commentary and
are strictly limited to a pure description of the statistical figures. The releases do not contain
any political comments. Press releases are drafted in cooperation with technical units and
dissemination department, following defined internal procedures. In publications, statistics
70 TurkStat, 2014d and TurkStat,2014e.
71 TurkStat, 2014b.
72 Ibid