The UK Department for International Development (DFID) has signed an agreement with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to donate £16 million to support improvements in agricultural statistics available to governments and farmers around the world as part of a new global partnership.

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The partnership, Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics, builds the capacity of developing countries to produce and use agricultural and rural statistics for more effective food security, sustainable agricultural and rural development policies and helps make the information available to farmers when and where they need it.

Distinguished professor of environmental sciences Vaclav Smil has written of the problems facing statisticians in many parts of the world, and the impact this can have on efforts to achieve food security. In the past, Smil has criticised world leaders for their failure to act on hunger by improving knowledge sharing, shortening supply chains and increasing equitability to reduce food waste, which can account for 50 per cent of harvests due to poor storage facilities and other difficulties in parts of the world.

The UK contribution to the Global Strategy covers the programme's first phase, which will run from 2012 to 2016, and will support mainly African and Asian countries. The emphasis is on improving how governments organize and manage their statistical systems and on technical assistance and staff training in national statistics offices and ministries of agriculture. DFID's contribution will also support research to identify innovative approaches for cost-efficient data collection, analysis and dissemination. This includes digital and georeferencing technology and devices, such as smartphones, GPS and satellites.

Improved statistics for better planning

It is hoped the improved statistical systems will enable governments to develop clearer pictures of their countries’ production, making it easier to develop more effective agricultural policies, to combat hunger and poverty.  The new technologies will facilitate accurate data collection.

The Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics programme, led by the FAO will come to operate in 90 developing countries over its initial five year phase, working with a total budget of £52 million.

Speaking about the project’s importance, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said, "Empowering farmers can change their lives. By improving statistics, this programme will contribute to this goal."

He continued, "The programme provides an excellent example of how FAO works with partners to translate global information into concrete results at household, community and country levels. The UK Government's generous support will help deliver enormous benefits to governments around the world and the people they serve."

The international partnership has used Ethiopia as a good example of how an upgraded statistical system can bring about profound changes. Whereas previously, the national crop production estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) often differed greatly, making it difficult for policy-makers to develop sound agricultural policies or to plan food aid allocation and distribution, by uniting the two agencies, and implementing new technologies to improve harvest area measurements, yield estimates and market price monitoring, data collected today gives more reliable production estimates which can be used to underpin food security and agricultural developments.

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