Siem Reap – Senior government statisticians from 17 Asia-Pacific countries and FAO experts are meeting this week at a regional forum to discuss ways to improve governments’ access to reliable and up-to-date agricultural data to ensure effective agricultural and rural development policies and programmes.

Cambodia’s Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, HE Chan Sarun inaugurated this morning the 23rd Session of the Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics (APCAS), 26 to 30 April 2010 in Siem Reap at Apsara Angkor Hotel.

Access to reliable food and agricultural statistics is crucial for formulating effective government policies and programmes for food and livelihood security at a time when countries in the region face the twin challenges of high food prices and the persisting adverse impact of the international economic crisis, an FAO statement said.

"The Commission provides a unique opportunity to put forward proposals that may contribute to the further development of agricultural statistics in the Asia-Pacific region", noted Hiroyuki Konuma, Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific.

Food insecurity has increased in the Asia-Pacific region which is home to more than 60 percent of the world’s over 1 billion hungry people. Nearly 18 percent of the region’s population was undernourished in 2009, compared to 16 percent in 2006 – the first time since the Green Revolution in the 1960s that the share of the hungry in the region has increased.

Cambodia will showcase its fisheries statistics, socio-economic survey and gender issues in agriculture in the country.

"We all agreed that sufficiency and accuracy of the statistical data is very important for the policy makers and concerned stakeholders in developing agriculture sector. The absence of reliable data leaves them no choice other than guess estimates according to their own common sense or convenience", stated HE Dr CHAN Sarun, Minister for Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries, Kingdom of Cambodia.

The meeting will review recent developments in national agricultural statistical systems in the region while senior national statistics officials will exchange ideas with experts from FAO and other international bodies on the state of food and agricultural statistics in the region.

FAO experts will explain the ongoing global strategy to improve agricultural statistics, review the implementation of FAO’s current round of World Census of Agriculture in the region and assess national agricultural statistical priorities.

"The APCAS session will discuss efforts to integrate agricultural statistics into national statistical systems in Asia and the Pacific and statistical capacity building efforts in the region", added Jairo Castano, FAO senior agricultural statistician, based in Bangkok.

Some 57 statistics officials from 17 APCAS member nations – Afghanistan, Australia, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United States and Viet Nam – are attending the meeting. In addition, Timor-Leste is present as an observer, while FAO experts and representatives of other UN agencies and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) are participating as resource person.

For more information, contact Jairo Castano, Senior Statistician, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific at [email protected]

More information at:
http://www.faorap-apcas.org/index.htm