Improving Agricultural Statistics in the COMCEC Region
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Agricultural censuses do not only provide a frame for other surveys but they themselves
provide important statistics on the structures of agriculture. Agricultural censuses years are
also periods when agricultural statistics have more resources and are visable. The regularity of
agricultural censuses, the methodology they use and their coverage give a fairly good idea
about the state of agricultural statistics in many countries. Therefore, an extensive review and
analysis of agricultural censuses conducted in the COMCEC Member Countries was carried out.
The review of agricultural censuses has two components. First is the participation in the
“World Census of Agriculture Program” rounds of 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010. The census
rounds and years in which the COMCEC Member Countries participated are detailed in Annex 2
Table A.2.2. In Table 18, the results of the evaluation are summarized by assigning a
participation score, which consists of 2 points for participation in each of the four rounds, and
an extra 2 points for participation in the last round.
In terms of conducting regular agricultural censuses at least every 10 years, Bangladesh, Egypt,
Pakistan and Turkey received full scores. Albania, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Togo, Tunisia,
Uganda and Yemen are the next best performers participating in three censuses, one being in
the last round. The worst performers, with only one census in four rounds and that one not in
the last round are Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Qatar and Sudan.
Brunei, Kuwait and Palestine are the only countries with no record of an agricultural census in
the last four rounds.
The second component of the review was the evaluation of the methodologies used in the
agricultural censuses. This was done by looking at five indicators, namely the availability of
metadata, frames used, whether or not the agricultural census was integrated with the
population census, whether a full census or a sample survey was conducted, and finally the
geographical and commodity coverage of the census. The methodology was scored as follows:
 Availability of metadata: 3 points
 Availability of a frame: 2 points
 Integration with population census: 2 points
 Full census or full census+survey= 3 points; sample survey: 2 points
 Full coverage: 3 points; partial coverage: 1 point
Out of a possible 13 points for census methodology, Algeria and Bahrain performed the best
with full scores, followed by Albania, Bangladesh, Egypt, Guinea, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia,
Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey with 11 points each. For 24 COMCEC countries
including Afghanistan, Brunei, Chad, Cameroon, Gabon, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Kuwait,
Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Mali, Nigeria, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Somalia,
Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, no
information on the census methodology could be found in the public domains.