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Development Constraint to be Addressed:
Agriculture is the mainstay of Kyrgyzstan’s economy,
with cotton, wool and meat the main agricultural products and exports.
The agricultural sector currently accounts for some 38% of Gross
Domestic product and employs some 55% of the labour force. Prior
to Independence (1991), the agricultural sector was concentrated
in some 540 state farms, all of which kept excellent records and
were able to provide data for statistical purposes. After Independence,
these large farms have been broken up into smaller state or collective
farms and now number around 1 500. There are also some 250 000 peasant
farms as well as a large number of individual households operating
‘subsidiary’ plots. This dramatic change in the structure of the
agricultural sector has created major difficulties for the statistical
system, which is heavily reliant on farmers’ registers.
In order to overcome this weakness and to provide
up-to-date and reliable information on the agricultural sector for
planning and policy making, the Government is presently conducting
a National Census of Agriculture as a two-stage enumeration exercise.
The first part has already been conducted between June and September
2002 and covered crop areas and production while the second part
of the census will be conducted in the first quarter of 2003 to
cover livestock and agricultural inputs. While the actual conduct
of the Census is well provided for, including with the support of
donors, the Government has serious concerns about the processing
and analysis of the census data as well as about the reconciliation
of the census results with the current agricultural statistics and
the re-basing of the key time series. The Government is also fully
aware that new statistical methodologies need to be put in place
to ensure the sector is properly monitored after the census. FAO
technical assistance has been requested to address these key concerns.
Development objective:
The development objective of the assistance is to
strengthen the system of food and agricultural statistics so that
policy and administrative decisions aimed at increasing agricultural
production, ensuring food security and supporting rural development,
are based on reliable and up-to-date information.
Immediate objectives:
- to strengthen the national capacity to process and analyse the
data collected in the 2002/03 agricultural census
- to reconcile differences between the agricultural census data
and the current statistics
to develop and test new sampling methodologies appropriate to
the collection of crop and livestock data
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