Overview of Solomon Islands agricultural census 2017

1. Regional Workshop for Monitoring the SDGs related to Food
and Agriculture Sector and on the WCA 2020
Nadi, Fiji 6-10 November 2017
Technical Session: 18
Douglas Kimi
Government Statistician
National Statistics Office 1

2. PRESENTATION OUTLINE
 Background
 Government Policy Statements
 Authority and Legislation
 Planning for Agriculture Census
 Budget Submission
 Survey Design
 Survey Instruments
 Survey Operations
 Census on Commercial Farms/Holdings
 Lessons Learnt and Opportunities
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3.  There has never been a AC in the Solomon Islands
 The latest agriculture survey is conducted in 1986-7 (partial coverage)
 Why it is important to conduct Agricultural Census in SI?
 To provide policy makers with minimum set of core data, for evidence-
based policy development for project monitoring and evaluation purposes:
I. developing a new Agriculture Sector Plan
II.understanding impact of existing programs on agricultural production
and practices
III.identifying new areas for investment in development of new high-value
crops/tree crops
 For benchmark information on Agriculture
 To provide sampling frames for follow-up agricultural sample surveys
 To establish a sustainable plan for ensuring regular updating of
agriculture, forestry, fishery and livestock data
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Background

4. The current government Policy Statements for Agriculture and Livestock
Development are:
‘To work towards food security and poverty alleviation for the nation and ensure a
healthy, literate and contented population.’
AND
‘To ensure the sustainable utilization and conservation of natural resources,
protection of the environment and successfully combating the adverse effect of
climate change.’
Agriculture and Livestock development is mandated to:
◦ Facilitate and support development of commercial agriculture
◦ Facilitate research and development of high value crops
◦ Facilitate acquisition of Russell Islands Plantation Estates
◦ Support agro-forestry development
◦ Promote oil palm development in other parts of the country
◦ Facilitate and support the development of the livestock industry
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Government Policy Statements

5. Authority and Legislation
 The Government Statistician has authority – empowered and
guided by the Statistics Act 1970 (its subsequent amendment
2007), and the Census Act 1959
 The SINSO is a central official statistical agency, whose mandate
is to collect, process, analyse and disseminate core official
statistics for the purposes of policy and planning, decision
making and public debate.
 SINSO is also implementing the National Statistics Development
Strategy NSDS 2015-2035 (20 years strategy) - endorsed by the
SI Government in November 2016. NSO is currently rolling-out
the strategy
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6. Planning for Agriculture Census
 Ministry of Agriculture & Livestock MAL communicated with FAO
mid-2014 for agriculture census as priority project for Solomon
Islands and requested FAO to begin implementation
 MAL developed a plan to conduct the Agriculture Census in 2016
 Under the Country Partnership Framework CPF with FAO (2013-
17) US$200k was set aside to country allocation for Agricultural
Census
 FAO secured services of a Statistics Consultant to begin
consultation and planning, in Nov 2014
 A pre-planned FAO mission, involving consultation of all national
stakeholders, took place in Honiara 9 - 12 March, 2015
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7. Budget Submission
 In 2015 MAL submitted Development budget of USD$3.8million to SI
Govt. to conduct the Agricultural Census
 FAO committed USD$200,000 - for Technical Assistance
 SPC committed USD$150,000 - for Technical Assistance
 Unfortunately, the budget approved by SI government totalled
US$264k, the money was not enough to conduct the Census. NSO
when consulted by MAL to execute a census, with this budget
allocation, used the money for recruitment of Secretariat and for
administrative cost. A decision to conduct AS was final
 In the 2016 SINSO requested US$800k for the 2017 budget and the
government made available through supplementary USD$2.4million
for the Agriculture Survey and five other NSO projects, 2017 7

8. Brief Sampling Design
 A two stage stratified sampling procedure was adopted to select
the sample households for survey.
 Each of the ten provinces including Honiara will be treated as
separate stratum in order to provide estimates for the provinces.
 The census enumeration areas (EAs) will be selected from each
stratum as first stage units (FSUs) or primary stage units (PSUs)
using probability proportional to size (number of households).
 In the second stage, the households are selected from the
selected EAs systematically with a random start.
Sample Size
A total of 176 EAs and 4,224 households was selected for survey.
Based on the sampling design, the sample list for the survey has
been drawn and provided by the SPC
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Survey Design

9.  FAO consultant support the questionnaire design and the
manual for the survey
 The Tonga questionnaire was used as a template to design the
Solomon Islands Agriculture survey
 During the training of trainers, a Pilot survey was done and
 During the training of the enumerators/supervisors a pretest of
the questionnaire was done in several EAs
 Actually the training proper was done by the FAO Consultant
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Survey Instruments

10. Survey Operations
 A total of 88 field officer comprise of 66 enumerators and 22
supervisors were recruited and trained to take part in field
operation
 A total 22 teams consist of 4 field officers 3 enumerators and 1
supervisor per team.
 Each team will interview 24 households per EA, in one week
 A total of 8 weeks was planned to complete the survey operation.
Completed as scheduled in 1st week of October 2017
 Data editing, tabulation and reporting will be done before the
end of December 2017
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11. Census on Commercial Farms/Holdings
 A list of Commercial farms/holding was provided by Ministry of
Agriculture and Livestock MAL
 A decision to do Census on the identified Commercial farms/
holdings.
 NSO economics Unit with the support of the resident NSO
Advisor prepare the Questionnaire and the manual for the
Commercial Farms.
 MAL Extension officers are trained to take the responsibility of
conducting the Census of Commercial farms
 Due to availability of Funds, the Census field operation starts this
month and will end in December/January 11

12. Lessons Learnt & Opportunities
 The SINSO through the NSDS must dialogue with SI Government - must set aside
a budget for Agriculture Census in 2021/22
 Under the NSDS, Development Partners dialogue is important to support AC data
collection
 Proper planning for Agriculture Census is important – say 24 to 36 months before
field operations
 Make advocacy programs through the Provincial Government and Agriculture
extension services to ensure the people take ownership of data to be collected and
to assist the field officers do their work effectively
 Right questions, inclusion of relevant items and also the country specific questions
are important
 This workshop is timely for NSO as plans to do the AC 2020 round is forth-coming
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13. Thank you
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