Improving Agricultural Statistics in the COMCEC Region
23
Table 9: Response Ratios to FAO Questionnaires in Asia (2008-2011)
No.
of
Count.
Production Trade Producer
Prices
Land
Use
Fertilizers Pesticides Machinery
COMCEC 27 NA 0.76 0.61 0.54 NA 0.37 NA
ASIA 50 0.25 0.72 0.58 0.49 0.58 0.35 0.47
WORLD 227 0.44 0.73 0.53 0.26 0.52 0.34 0.28
Note: Production response is for Asia (50) and Oceania (20) together and underestimates Asia. Trade covers
the 2000-2010 periods but is only for 25 APCAS members and 6 COMCEC Members in APCAS.
Source: FAO, 2012.
As far as types of response to FAO questionnaires are concerned, on average Asian countries
faired better with less rates of “no response” and more “frequent response”. COMCEC
Members’ performance in Asia was also better than the COMCEC Members’ performance in
Africa. Trade domain showed the highest rates of frequent responses. Land use, and pesticides
questionnaires on the other hand registered the highest number of countries with irregular or
never questionnaire returns (Table 10).
Table 10: Types of Response to FAO Questionnaires in Asia (2008-2011)
Average
Ratio
Trade Producer Prices Land Use Pesticides
COMCEC (27)
Never 0.23 0.00 0.26 0.22 0.44
Irregular 0.33 0.33 0.30 0.48 0.19
Frequent 0.44 0.67 0.44 0.30 0.36
ASIA (50)
Never 0.25 0.12 0.21 0.18 0.48
Irregular 0.34 0.20 0.39 0.50 0.26
Frequent 0.41 0.68 0.40 0.32 0.26
Note: Trade is from 2000-2010 and only includes 25 APCAS members and 6 COMCEC Members in APCAS.
Frequent is 8 or more response. Irregular is less than or equal to 7 responses and Never is no response at all.
Source: Table 12 and FAO, 2012.
Table 11 presents the questionnaire response ratios, type of responses and delay in returning
questionnaires by individual and group of COMCEC Members. In land use the best performers
in the number of questionnaires returned are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kyrgyzistan and
Turkey in the Asian group and Syria in the Arab group with full return of all questionnaires. In
producer prices, the rate of responses remains the same in the Asian group, excluding
Afghanistan, and the Arab group includes Jordan and Palestine. With respect to pesticide
questionnaires, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh and Kyrgyzistan in the Asian group and Jordan in the
Arab group are the best performers. Brunei, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan in the Asian group and