While the demand for accurate data on agricultural production is high given its importance for food security, for constructing basic policy-relevant indicators such as productivity or value-added and for reporting purposes at different levels (CAADP, SDG), agricultural production surveys are still conducted irregularly in many developing countries or with a limited scope due to constraints in resources and statistical knowledge.

Objectives:

The main objective of this package is to help countries with limited capacity and experience in agricultural statistics produce timely and reliable statistics on their agricultural production. Specifically, the assistance aims to build the minimum level of statistical capacity to generate basic agricultural data, mainly on land use and production. The assistance encompasses the entire data cycle, from questionnaire design to data dissemination. It will also extend to the better use of administrative data sources in the estimation of agricultural production.

Activities and Results:

• Development of and training on hands-on tools to produce quality data on annual crop and livestock statistics.

• Enhanced country capacity to develop survey tools for agricultural surveys and to use administrative data to improve the coverage and quality of production statistics. 

This package has been adopted by Angola, Comores, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Lesotho, Madagascar, DRC, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Zambia.

The availability of reliable and comparable information on the profitability and productivity of agricultural activities is essential to designing cost-efficient public incentives in the sector, such as price support mechanisms or input subsidies, which are still widespread in many of the sub-Saharan African countries that are covered by the GSARS.

Objectives:

The main objective of this package will be to provide countries with the appropriate knowledge on data collection and analytical tools to measure key economic aggregates, both at the farm and commodity- level. These aggregates include incomes, cost of production and agricultural productivity.

Activities and Results:

Enhanced country capacity to develop and implement data collection and analytical tools on socio-economic aspects through the conduction of the following activities:

• Analysis of existing tools.
• Proposal of indicators and data collection strategy.
• Technical trainings and preparation of the survey tools.
• Pilot-data collection.
• Data analysis.
• Restitution workshop. 

This package has been adopted by Côte d'Ivoire, Lesotho, Mozambique, Benin, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Sudan, Zimbabwe.

Package- LOSSES

The reduction of losses in food chains is amongst the top priorities of the sub-Saharan African countries covered by the GSARS. Recognizing the relevance of food losses for the agricultural sector and the urgency of increasing the data availability, phase I of the GSARS developed guidelines, tools and training material on this topic.

Objectives:

The objective of this training is to provide countries with the appropriate data collection and analytical tools to measure harvest and post-harvest losses of agricultural commodities on the farm. This training package will propose strategies covering the entire data cycle, adapted to each country, including the description of the data collection approach, the measurement method(s) used, the aggregate indicators constructed and associated calculation procedures.

Activities and Results:

Enhanced country capacity to develop and implement data collection and analytical tools on farm losses through the conduction of the following activities:

• Analysis of existing evidence and program drafting.
• Data collection strategy and indicators.
• Technical trainings and preparation of the survey tools.
• Pilot-data collection.
• Data analysis.
• Restitution workshop.

This package has been adopted by Guinea, Mozambique, Tanzania, Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Ghana, Mali, and Niger.

Package- Master Sampling Frame (MSF)