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59.5% employed in agriculture

13.5% land area devoted to agriculture

10.6% share of agriculture in GDP

Challenges

Fiji is an archipelago of 300 islands in the South Pacific that includes both low lying coral and limestone and high altitude volcanic masses. Agriculture is very important, employing close to 60 percent of its population, even though it accounts for only 10.6 percent share of its GDP. Fiji has not yet developed a national strategy for collection of statistics, and there is a lack of regular collection and survey activity. Additionally, there is a lack of financial and human resources to build and maintain agricultural statistics systems in the country. 

There is a lack of financial and human resources in Fiji to build and maintain agricultural statistics systems. It does not have uniform standards, definitions, data collection and reporting methods, and the information that is available suffers from poor dissemination. The important fisheries and aquaculture industries suffer from weak data collection and management systems. The country is furthermore highly susceptible to climate change in agriculture, forestry, fishery and water resources.     

Current Work

The Global Strategy in Asia Pacific has proposed meeting agricultural and rural statistics needs in Fiji through the following actions.

· Develop a Strategic Plan for Agricultural and Rural Statistics (SPARS)

· Support and assist in developing a planned 2016 Agricultural Survey

·  Develop an agriculture module for the 2017 Population and Housing Census

·  Evaluate administrative data collection methodologies and recommend areas for improvement

· Assist in adoption of mobile technologies for agriculture and fisheries data collection

· Develop a master sampling frame for survey activity that takes place after censuses

· Train individuals and agencies in basic statistical methods, advanced statistical methods, methods used in agricultural statistics and specialized statistics techniques

Achievements

Three reports have led to progress on establishing a Strategic Plan for Agricultural and Rural Statistics (SPARS): an In-depth Country Assessment, a country proposal for short-term technical assistance and training, and a SPARS roadmap.  The IdCA has been officially endorsed by the Fiji Government.  In addition, four priority work streams identified in the country proposal paper are currently being assessed by the Government for implementation: assessment of the 2015 Agriculture Baseline Survey Outcomes, supporting and improving administrative data collection activities, improving the availability and regularity of agricultural production statistics and adoption of mobile technologies for data collection. A Global Strategy in Asia Pacific mission in April 2016 will provide next steps for completing the reports and activating the work streams.