International Conference on Agricultural Statistics V

Integrating agriculture into the national statistical system

12 - 15 October 2010, Uganda 

The Fifth International Conference on Agricultural Statistics (ICAS-V) took place from 12-15 October 2010 in Kampala, Uganda, conducted under the auspices of the ISI Committee on Agricultural Statistics.

The theme of the conference was ''Integrating Agriculture into the National Statistical System''. The theme is the primary pillar of a recent initiative by the international community to assess and improve the quality of agricultural statistics.

The conference focused on the report by the United Nations Statistical Commission “Global Strategy for Improving Agricultural and Rural Statistics” which was developed during the previous International Conference on Agricultural Statistics in 2007.

Improving agricultural statistics
With this Global Strategy, the international community aims at improving agricultural statistics by assessing its current situation. The assessment has evidenced a decline in the quantity and the quality of agricultural statistics. However it also underlined the urgent need to acknowledge the importance of agriculture’s role in developing food security policies in the global fight against hunger and poverty. The Global Strategy defines the role of agriculture in addition to new requirements concerning land and water use, climate change and the increasing use of food and feed commodities to produce biofuels. ICAS-V will respond to one of the main recommendations of the Global Strategy, namely that agriculture be integrated into national statistical systems.

Conference focus
The conference focused on a number of topics such as: agriculture conceptual framework; scope and coverage of agriculture; economic and social statistics; environment statistics; use of new technologies and tools in agriculture statistics; remote sensing and early warning; data collection and dissemination; global strategy components; agricultural statistics at country level; training; research; technical assistance; national and international governance; rural and social statistics; population and agriculture censuses; household and agricultural surveys.

Pre-conference seminar
A pre-conference seminar on “Methodology for Agricultural Censuses and Surveys” and a side event on “Integrating Agricultural Food Security Statistics in the National Statistical Systems” was held by USDA-NASS and FAO respectively on 12 October 2010.

Hosted by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the conference took place at the Speke Resort & Conference Centre, in Kampala, Uganda.

For more information please visit the conference website.