The Global Strategy builds capacities on farm typology in Burkina Faso

The first training on Farm Typology in the frame of the Phase II of the Global Strategy was held in Burkina Faso from 21 to 28 June 2022. The training was organised in three sessions. The first one aimed at introducing to the larger public of producers and users of agricultural statistics in the country the internationally recognized concepts and definitions for the classification of agricultural holdings into homogeneous groups while consulting their experience and needs in the field of farm typology. The participants from different directorates of the Ministry of Agriculture (MARAH), National Statistical Institute (INSD), state agencies and non-governmental organisations (SP-CNPS, SONAGESS, CFP, CNA, etc.) expressed their interest in the definition and use of farm typology at national level for the needs of better targeting the agricultural support.

The second session aimed at training agricultural statisticians and economists in the definitions and methods of calculation of the classification variables necessary for the determination of the farm types. The four farm typology dimensions: farm profile, size, specialisation and diversification were discussed in details and the methods of calculation of related classification variables were explained, using the examples from the Guidelines for development of a classification system related to farm typology developed within Phase I of the Global strategy and applying existing data of Burkina Faso.

Finally, the team of statisticians of the Sector Statistics Directorate (SSD) at the Ministry of Agriculture was trained to calculate the necessary variables using the existing data from the Permanent Agricultural Survey 2020 and 2021 on agricultural households and from the Agricultural Census 2021 of modern (commercial) farms. In particular, variables such as the total value of agricultural production, the share of sales in the total value of agricultural production and the total value of non-agricultural production per agricultural holding were calculated.

As a result of the training, the agents from the SSD produced the first classification of agricultural holdings in farm types covering and representing significant part of the population of agricultural holdings of Burkina Faso. Following the training activities, the country team with the support of the FAO will refine the calculation of the variables; select the pertinent farm types and present main indicators from the statistical survey per farm type. This is expected to have a positive impact on the quality of agricultural statistics of the country, in particular in terms of increased data dissemination and increased relevance of produced statistics to the needs of the users.