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The Agriculture Sector from production to consumption in the World programme of the Census of Agriculture 2020. World Census of Agriculture framework volumes (I and II) would be issued by FAO for the member countries to ensure that the census results are currently harmonized and internationally comparable allowing countries to benchmark their performance against others.

The WCA 2020 is a tenth decennial programme for a national statistic system with a collection of data of relevant aspects of the agriculture sectors providing also the basis for implementation of agricultural censuses in FAO member countries between 2016 and 2025.

The Programme would lay the groundwork for all the countries worldwide, developing an integrated census and survey programme, with an introduction of innovative and cost-effective methodologies (“classical” census or a “modular” census) like GPS, phones’ applications, the geographic information system, and the use of graphics information and ultimately making better-informed strategic decisions to achieve targets of the SDGs.

Mr. Jairo Castaño, Senior Statistician of the FAO Statistical Division (ESS), introduced the FAO WCA Programme in his participation at the G77 & China plenary meeting held on 27 February 2017 in the Red Room at FAO HQ in Rome, and chaired over by the Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, H.E. Elías Eljuri Abraham. He indicated how the high costs and the large amount of resources necessary to implement the Agricultural Census have limited the participation of the countries, whilst only 85 countries have confirmed their participation in the new round of Censuses 2020. A new formula developed would help to minimize costs and extend the process of Agriculture Census to other members.

The structural pyramid of data collected in a census of agriculture are size of holding level, crop area, land tenure, land use, irrigation, livestock numbers, labour and other agricultural inputs but may also include community-level data and be enlarged to private sector. FAO expects member countries to conduct the agricultural census using these CAM guidelines at least once every 10 years.