ISI Satellite meeting in Maputo, August 2009 Strategy for Improving Agriculture and Rural Statistics Future Direction: Statistical Capacity Building Tanzania Experience

Outline 1Introduction 2Improving Technical and Financial Capacities in developing countries 3Research to determine the production costs for different Agriculture products in developing countries 4Research to determine the Minimum cultivatable Land Area for different crops sufficient for transformation from subsistence farming to profit making agriculture 5Further analysis of data produced from Agriculture Surveys and censuses

1.0 Introduction Tanzania fully supports the global strategy to improve Agriculture Statistics Tanzania has launched a National Strategy to fight hunger and poverty by the year 2025 through a revolution called “a Green Revolution“ Tanzania is also soon launching the Statistical Master Plan (TSMP), which will be funded through the World Bank. Agriculture Statistics is one of the areas, which are covered adequately within the TSMP framework The Global Strategy for improving Agriculture is therefore inline with what Tanzania has embarked on and it is with no doubts that these strategies will complement each other

A decline in the quality and quantity of data about agriculture has been noted in one of the presentations and stated that is most severely in developing countries This is the fact and it is probably attributed to the donor community and development partners reducing their commitments in funding for technical and advanced studies in developing countries This used to happen in early 90’s. It is therefore important that this program is restored for this work program to work properly and meet the intended objectives 2.0Improving Technical and Financial Capacities in developing countries

This research is urgently required if we want to transform smallholder Agriculture from subsistence farming to profit making agriculture information at the lowest level of planning of different counties. In Tanzania for example this information would be available at district level This information is vital in determining prices for different agricultural products at farm level. Unlike the current situation where farmers are selling their Agricultural products without the knowledge of how much they invested in producing them. 3.0Research to determine the production costs for different Agriculture products in developing countries

This research is urgently required if we want to transform smallholder Agriculture from subsistence farming to profit making agriculture This information is also very important and will facilitate the policy makers with vital information for the best practice to allocate land resources It will also provide guidance for different investors who wants to invest in Agriculture. 4.0Research to determine the Minimum cultivatable Land Area for different crops sufficient for transformation from subsistence farming to profit making agriculture

Currently reports are produced for Agricultural Surveys and Censuses as descriptive of numbers, frequencies and summations of different variables Indeed this level of analysis is important but could add more value to the data produced if a further analysis practice could be adopted. employment of regression and multivariate analysis techniques The analysis done for the 2003 Agriculture Sample Census in Tanzania though produced very good reports left a lot of information without being further analyzed Regression and Multivariate analysis produces more informative information for policy makers and policy formulation 5.0Further analysis of data produced from Agriculture Surveys and censuses

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