With the clock ticking on meeting the zero hunger target by 2030, and in order to feed nine billion people by 2050, creating an accurate picture on the present situation of food production, and having the structure in place to produce it, is critical, a panel of top Asian statisticians heard today.

The launch of a new round of agricultural censuses in the region will help Asian countries face the growing challenges of food security, poverty, climate change and sustainable development.

Twenty-one Asian countries are participating in a roundtable discussion as part of the FAO’s World Programme for the Census for Agriculture 2020 (WCA 2020).  The roundtable discussion was opened by Kundhavi Kadiresan, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific. The census, held once every ten years, provides a vital snapshot of the current state of agriculture, and is crucial to analyze its sustainability and potential productivity. The timing is critical as the results of these censuses will assist in providing a baseline in monitoring progress toward achieving the world’s Strategic Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2, the goal to achieve zero hunger by 2030.

The Bangkok gathering is focusing, in part, on new developments since the previous census round, including increased use of advances in information and communication technologies, such as mobile phones, tablet computers and geo-referencing tools such as GPS and GIS to collect and improve data.  It will also include a greater focus on climate change, providing guidance for the first time on how to obtain and integrate data on greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions from agricultural activities.

“The statistics we accrue through this fundamental exercise can serve as building blocks to successful and sustainable agricultural policies and actions for countries, in addition to being a basis for designing other surveys which allow us to more frequently assess its status,” said Mukesh Srivastava, Senior Statistician at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. “As Asia strives to implement new and progressive policies and the use of new technologies to help feed and improve the livelihoods of its growing population, this meeting will help our member countries’ efforts to modernize agricultural production and ensure it meets growing demand, both in the region and worldwide.”

“Our team spent two and a half years developing new guidelines for the census following revision of country experiences and consultations with countries and stakeholders,” said Jairo Castano, leader of the FAO Agricultural Censuses and Surveys Team in Rome. “These are now being rolled out through the regional roundtables, which will help countries gain a deeper understanding of the new approaches and methodologies to data collection being advocated by FAO for this new count.”

The new round of national censuses takes place between 2016 and 2025. By collecting structural data on agriculture such as the number, size and distribution of holdings, land tenure, land use, crop area, crop intensity, irrigation, livestock numbers, machinery and equipment, as well as socio-demographic characteristics, the census serves as the most important and complete source of information on agriculture.   FAO’s census programme provides guidance and technical support for participating countries, which carry out their own counts. FAO also supports national census efforts by providing technical assistance through its projects and works with development partners to mobilize necessary resources for its member countries.

The Census has been completed once every ten years since 1930. FAO’s guidance of the census began in the 1950 round, and since then it has served as the lead organizing body.