In response to a growing demand for high-quality and internationally-comparable statistics, FAO develops, implements and promotes methods and standards to guide national data producers in generating and using sound statistics. In particular, the Organization is committed to provide national statistical systems with internationally recognized definitions, concepts and classifications as well as methodological guidance for the production of high quality statistics related to food and agriculture.
This interface allows you to search for statistical classifications, guidelines and handbooks, technical reports, working papers and methodological documents, and capacity development resources. You can search by SUBJECT (general, agriculture, forestry, fishery and aquaculture, and natural resources) or use the ADVANCED SEARCH to search by keyword, country, language and lead authoring unit/office. Comments, suggestions and inquiries can be addressed to: [email protected].
You can access here all the statistical guidelines and handbooks, technical reports, working papers and methodological documents, and capacity development resources.
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Comments, suggestions and inquiries can be addressed to: [email protected].
Abstract: Prepared by the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), these Guidelines aim to improve the availability of systematically integrated and comparable sex-disaggregated and gender-relevant data within agricultural surveys by bridging significant data gaps. Specifically, the Guidelines identify key indicators focusing on crop and livestock activities in developing countries where the agricultural sector is largely characterized by agricultural households, and propose adaptations to existing agriculture surveys based on the latest research in survey methods and gender analysis.
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: Given the importance of the livestock sector’s contribution to the reduction of poverty and improvement of global human health, the Global Strategy has implemented a line of research on Improving methods for estimating livestock production and productivity, one of the key priorities of the Research Program. These Guidelines overlap to some extent with the final technical report on Improving methods for estimating livestock production and productivity, produced by the University of New England (UNE), Australia. In addition to the findings presented in the technical reports of the research line, further additional operational inputs from relevant literature were also used to develop these Guidelines. These Guidelines are intended to be a reference document providing country statisticians with technical and operational guidance on various aspects of livestock production and productivity statistics, in a broad range of country conditions, with particular attention being paid to developing countries. This document addresses an important gap, given that the most recent FAO publication on the subject dates back to 1992 (FAO, 1992).
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: The growing demand by policymakers and decision makers for statistics based on information that is interlinked in economic, social, and environmental aspects requires the large-scale expansion of national efforts to implement statistical surveys, in terms of organization and budget. Therefore, the collection of data by integrating information from different sources is becoming a crucial requirement for the production of statistics. The Guidelines are intended especially for use by the staff of national statistical offices and ministries or agencies that are involved in data collection on agriculture, and seek to provide basic information with a step-by-step approach, beginning with practical examples drawn from the experiences of certain countries. These Guidelines illustrate a statistical method that produces correct estimates with reduced time and costs; in particular, they demonstrate the application of indirect sampling to integrated household surveys for a wide range of topics on the basis of the correspondence between households and holdings, so that these may be observed in various scenarios within a single survey.These guidelines were prepared by the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS).
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: These Guidelines are the result of a research project undertaken within the Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), a statistical capacity-building initiative whose Global Office is hosted by the Statistics Division of FAO. The Guidelines build upon methodologies presented in other papers, technical reports and manuals published by FAO and other organizations. They provide recent findings on the measurement of harvest and post-harvest losses in developing countries.
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: These Guidelines are the result of a research project undertaken within the Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), a statistical capacity-building initiative whose Global Office is hosted by the Statistics Division of Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO). The Guidelines build upon methodologies presented in papers, technical reports and manuals published by FAO and other organizations. They also build on the findings of technical assistance activities conducted in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where data collection tools have been designed and tested. These Guidelines provide recommendations on the measurement of agricultural productivity, with an emphasis on developing countries.
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: Prepared by the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), these Guidelines aim to support decisions about rural development policy by offering concepts and methods to improve the quality, availability, and use of statistics. The Guidelines present and explain how to construct a rural definition that is useful for organizing statistical information about rural areas.
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: Prepared by the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), these Guidelines on Farm Typology propose a tool to be used to classify agricultural holdings by multiple dimensions, aiming at enhancing comprehension of the farm structures and production diversity both between and within countries, and at more efficient targeting in agricultural and rural policies and investments.
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: These Guidelines, developed as part of the Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), seek to measure dimensions of labour force performance and job quality that are not well captured in the Decent Work framework in this setting. More specifically, the Guidelines propose Decent Work indicators that focus on youth (ages 15–24 years) within developing countries where the majority of households depend on agriculture for their well-being and a large share of the population lives in poverty.
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: Prepared by the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS), this Handbook aims to serve as a guide for statisticians from National Statistical Services seeking to improve their data collection methods to produce crop statistics, and to become the new reference document for estimating crop area, yield and production.
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
Abstract: Prepared by the Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics, this Report introduces and discusses the problem of measuring area and yield of vegetable crops, by exploring and testing methods such as farmer inquiry and objectives measurement and to propose a methodology for the production of data and statistics. A pilot test has been performed in two selected districts in Ghana to assess the methodology and the workability of the methods.
Lead authoring unit/office: Statistics Division (ESS)
