The Expert Consultation on Farmers' Income Statistics was held at the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific from 11 to 14 December 2007. It was designed to contribute to the improvement of farmers' income statistics in the Asia and Pacific Region; to identify methodologies for collection and possible integration of surveys to obtain farmers' income data; to review processing of farmers' income data and identify appropriate strategies for imputation and analysis; and to make recommendations for optimal strategies for improvement of the collection and analysis of farmers' income data.
The lack of basic data has for long been a problem in establishing statistics on the economic situation of agricultural households. In most countries, the information available does not give a precise indication of the farm income situation. Farm families cannot be accurately classified according to their level of income. These limitations are a serious handicap in devising suitable policies and in assessing the results of measures taken.
Data on rural and farm households and on rural economies and environments are increasingly sought as measures of the efficacy of agriculture public policies. Accountability is more than ever a requirement in governance, in both developing and developed countries. Objective assessment of the well-being of a nation's households is one obvious important indicator of success. The need to quantify and understand the effects of government actions on economic well-being puts renewed emphasis on the careful selection of indicators and their policy relevance.
To fill these information gaps, alternative methods are needed to complete the analysis. This expert consultation helped to identify some of these approaches and illustrated the use of various analysis procedures. In addition, the consultation identified potential areas for regional technical development assistance to address constraints in the generation and exchange of useful statistics on farm income. Recommendations were put forward, bearing in mind that the ultimate objective of policy-makers and of FAO is to enable stakeholders to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of the world's malnourished by 2015.
Experts from Australia, India, Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines and Thailand, the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat), as well as concerned FAO technical officers from headquarters and the regional office, contributed to discussions on these issues and developed recommendations. It is hoped the summary account contained in this report will be useful to both decision-makers and information practitioners in meeting the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of the region's malnourished by 2015.
He Changchui
Assistant Director-General and
FAO Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific
