1. The Government of Indonesia generously played host to the Eighteenth Session of the Asia and Pacific commission on Agricultural Statistics (APCAS), organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in Bali, Indonesia from 6 to 10 November 2000. Sixty-five delegates and observers from 17 member countries, three United Nations organizations/specialized agencies, and one international organization participated in the session.
2. Nelson P. Hutabarat, Secretary-General, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), Indonesia; Soedarti Surbakti, Director-General, BPS-Statistics Indonesia and I. Gusti Bagus Alit Putra, Deputy Governor of Bali, graced the opening of the session. Dennis Trewin, Australian Statistician, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) presided over the inaugural ceremonies, as outgoing chair.
3. Mr Hutabarat read the inaugural address of HE Bungaran Saragih, Minister for Agriculture and Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia. He welcomed all the delegates to the island of Bali and wished the commission a fruitful discussion. The minister informed the commission that the Government of Indonesia felt proud to host the Eighteenth Session of the commission as it reflected international confidence in Indonesia as well as the critical role of Indonesia in the activities of the commission.
4. He said that food and fiber were basic needs for all people. He noted that each day, about 230 000 people were being added to the world’s population. By 2025, Asia would be the home for about four billion people all of whom would be dependent on food production from agriculture. Policy making and development programmes, he said were dependent on the availability of accurate data and information. In turn, accuracy, timeliness and relevance of data were being determined by: (a) proper methodology for collecting, processing and presenting data; (b) availability of professional and honest human resources; and (c) budget support and suitable facilities. He stated that many developing countries faced constraints in providing accurate data and that these problems required immediate solutions.
5. He said that for Indonesia, being an archipelagic country, agricultural and forestry development planning was not an easy job and required data which were not only accurate, timely and up-to-date but also, objective, consistent and relevant.
6. Within the Asia-Pacific region, close cooperation in improving food and agricultural statistics in the region was being maintained with the support of the United Nations (UN) and international agencies such as Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). He said that many developing countries in the region were in need of financial and technical assistance to improve their national statistics system, in view of resource limitations. In this connection, he stressed the need to continue the regional project on improvement of agricultural statistics in Asia-Pacific countries.
7. He acknowledged the efforts of FAO in improving fisheries and forestry statistics. In particular, he recognized the important contribution of the FAO Guidelines on the Collection of Structural Aquaculture Statistics - Supplement to the Programme for the World Census of Agriculture 2000, in improving fishery statistics. He voiced the need to provide more training in this field for the member countries. He also cited the efforts of the Asia Pacific Forestry Commission (APFC) to assist member countries in improving data quality in the areas of wood residues, trees outside forests, woodfuels, and non-wood forest products with development potentials. He said he was grateful for these efforts but stressed the need for further actions to improve agricultural statistics in the region and expressed the wish for the commission to formulate a strategic plan to achieve this objective.
8. The globalization of the economy and trade liberalization were also exerting more demand for better information on current supplies of goods, and prospects for future supplies and production in the region. He also identified the need for improved demand figures for agricultural products and noted that the rapid development in information technology was contributing to enhanced access to information. He said that Asia-Pacific countries stood to benefit from this as it was providing the facility for information exchange. Moreover, he put in perspective that in addition to policy makers, farmers and agribusinesses were also stakeholders of data and information. In this context he emphasized that statistics must be presented in more digestible and easy-to-understand formats for end-users. He welcomed the existing cooperation among countries in the region to establish reliable data on the agricultural sector.
9. Finally, he thanked the organizers of the meeting and the local government of Bali for their generous support to the meeting. He also congratulated all the participants and wished everybody a fruitful meeting and a pleasurable stay in the Island of God. He then declared the Eighteenth Session of the Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics officially open.
10. Mr Trewin, in his capacity as outgoing chair, thanked the Government of Indonesia for hosting the session in Bali. He expressed confidence that this would result in an excellent and useful conference.
11. In his address, he highlighted four points. Firstly, he reminded that the focus on international comparability, while an important agenda of international meetings, should not take precedence over addressing national statistics priorities. He acknowledged that addressing prerequisites of national statistics should be pursued in the context of international frameworks and standards. He welcomed the contributions of guidelines on methods and supporting statistical training as useful tools for harmonizing national methodologies with international prerequisites. He noted the differences in national priorities and cited, for example, that while the supply and demand for rice was one of the key priorities for many Asian countries, Australia was now giving more attention to social issues associated with declining farm incomes and ageing of farm operators, land degradation and land management processes, and the access by rural communities to various facilities such as telecommunications.
12. Secondly, he noted that conferences like the APCAS session, provided a good environment for sharing, and learning from, experiences of other countries, both good and bad.
13. Thirdly, many countries were moving towards greater regional autonomy. For example, in Australia, the State Governments had many of the functional responsibilities for agriculture activities. This was providing particular challenges for national statistical offices. Many advantages could be gained from a centralized statistical system: quality, integrity and greater efficiency. However, there was a need to rise to the special challenges of satisfying the needs of regional governments. Australia’s experience with the problem of satisfying regional (State) governments’ needs for agriculture statistics was cited: a) there was an agreement signed by senior officers representing the Australian Government and each of the State Governments on statistical cooperation; b) the Australian Bureau of Statistics was hosting at least one meeting each year of an Agriculture Statistics User Advisory Committee where agriculture statistical priorities and other issues were discussed; c) the annual agriculture collection was made flexible to satisfy the special needs of the governments; and d) ABS was providing for state specific collections. While these were being funded by State Governments, they had the advantage of being able to use ABS statistical frameworks, infrastructure and skilled staff.
14. Fourthly, he gave the assurance that ABS would continue to be a great friend of Asia, and that the Asia-Pacific region would continue to be the focus of ABS technical assistance programmes.
15. Hiek Som, Chief, Statistical Development Service, FAO Statistics Division, delivered the speech on behalf of R. B. Singh, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific. He welcomed the delegates and observers and expressed FAO’s deep gratitude to the Government of Indonesia, particularly the excellent cooperation of BPS - Statistics Indonesia and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, for hosting the Eighteenth Session of the commission. He noted that the Tenth Session of the commission in 1984 had also been hosted by Indonesia.
16. He said that unprecedented developments in recent years, such as globalization and information and communication technology innovations, were providing bigger challenges for the statistical community to develop new techniques and methodologies for the collection, management and dissemination of information. He emphasized that good and accurate food and agriculture statistics could provide immeasurable support to the global battle to break the vicious circle of poverty and food insecurity.
17. He recognized the efforts in the region to strengthen national statistical systems. He particularly mentioned the significant achievement made by China in organizing and completing its first census of agriculture. He noted that the census results would provide unquantified benefits in terms of understanding the agricultural growth and performance in a country containing nearly a quarter of the world’s population and which has a wide and varied landscape of ecological setting and farming systems. He acknowledged the significant role played by the Italian Government in making this census a resounding success. He also cited similar efforts being made by the Japanese Government in supporting a regional project aimed at improving agricultural statistical systems in the region, and a special project in agricultural statistics in Indonesia.
18. He congratulated the commission for putting together interesting and timely topics for discussion in the current session. He was pleased that the agenda included a discussion on the status of, and issues associated with, the implementation of the Programme for the World Census of Agriculture, an area where FAO had always taken a lead role. He also recognized the initiative of the commission in putting together a users’ manual on food crop forecasting. He emphasized that strengthening crop forecasting techniques would provide an important contribution in minimizing the adverse effects of disasters on food security, particularly in the region where the agricultural sector had always been dependent on the vagaries of weather. He encouraged the delegates to actively pursue constructive debates and discussions on the other areas included in the agenda such as fishery and forestry statistics, agribusiness statistical information system, and the use of statistical frameworks for improvement of agricultural statistical services.
19. Finally, he reiterated his gratitude to the Government of Indonesia for hosting the session in Bali and expressed his appreciation for the hard work of the Secretariat. He wished the commission success in its deliberations and a pleasant stay in Bali.
20. Hiek Som, in his capacity as APCAS Secretary and on behalf of the commission, thanked the BPS - Statistics Indonesia and Center for Agriculture Data and Information (CADI), MAF for jointly organising and hosting the session.
21. He mentioned that he found his eight-year assignment as Senior Statistician, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, to be a most rewarding and enriching experience. An integral responsibility attached to the post was to act as the Secretary of the Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics. The challenges of the post were quite exciting considering that out of the almost 6 billion people inhabiting our world today, about 3.5 billion or close to 60% were living in APCAS countries. In the past ten years or so significant economic and political transformation of almost all the formerly planned economies in the region had taken place. He cited as an example, the big achievement by Viet Nam from being a net rice importer to becoming the second largest rice exporter. He noted that these countries had struggled to reform their systems and invariably, greater pressures had been exerted to improve and strengthen their national statistical systems and cited the completion of China’s first agriculture census as an example.
22. He said that he was honoured to have steered five sessions of the commission. This allowed him to closely follow the developments of national agricultural statistical services in the region. More importantly he got to know and was able to establish personal relationships with many of the key players in the national statistical organizations of APCAS member countries.
23. He acknowledged that these sessions served as a forum to strengthen national and regional cooperation and collaboration in many of the agricultural statistical development activities pursued by FAO. He also noted that despite economic and political problems faced by many member countries, the biennial sessions of APCAS had been held without any interruption, due largely to the willingness of countries to host the sessions.
24. He observed that Asia and Pacific countries were very diversified, culturally, economically, ecologically and politically. He was pleased to note, however, that despite this diversity, the commission had managed to contribute a great deal in influencing the activities of FAO. He pointed out that following the recommendations of the commission, FAO had prepared and published the supplement to the Programme for the World Census of Agriculture 2000 in respect of structural aquaculture statistics. The commission had also taken the initiative to ask FAO to prepare a users’ guide on food crop production forecasting. Further, the commission’s expression of the need for setting up a regional data exchange system received immediate and favourable response from the Government of Japan. He said, however, that while he had influenced the activities of the commission to play an active role in providing direction, these accomplishments would not have been realized without the unselfish cooperation and support of member countries.
25. He reiterated his personal gratitude to the hosts from BPS - Statistics Indonesia and the CADI, MAF for the excellent preparations they had made in organizing the Eighteenth Session. He also extended his thanks to all the delegates and observers attending this session and acknowledged the support of his colleagues both at FAO Regional Office and at the Statistics Division in Rome in formulating the agenda for the session and in preparing discussion papers as reference materials.
26. Finally, he thanked the Chair of the Seventeenth session of the commission for his active participation in the activities of APCAS.
27. Toto Sastrasuanda, Deputy Director-General, BPS-Statistics Indonesia, and Head of the Indonesian delegation was unanimously elected Chair of the Eighteenth Session. Rho Kyeong-Sang, Head of the Korean Delegation was elected First Vice-Chair and Akbar Ali, delegate from Malaysia, the Second Vice-Chair.
28. The commission constituted a Drafting Committee. Romeo S. Recide (Philippines) was elected Chair. Kaman Nainggolan (Indonesia), M.Q. Abrar (Pakistan), Kolin Toivonen (Australia), Hiek Som (Chief, Statistical Development Service, FAO, Rome), David Marshall (Senior Statistician, FAO, Rome) and Generoso G. de Guzman (Consultant, FAO/RAP) were co-opted to the Committee.
29. The session adopted the agenda given in Appendix A. A list of delegates and observers is given in Appendix B, and a list of documents in Appendix C. Speeches of the guests are in Appendices D and. The list of member countries of the commission, as of November 2000, is given in Appendix F.
