How to Build an Integrated Database in Agriculture and Food: The Farm Income and Prices Section Database – A Case Study Presentation to the Fourth International Conference on Agriculture Statistics - Beijing, China October 22-24, 2007 Statistics Canada Denis Chartrand

Outline Introduction Evolution of farm structure and farm income issues Agriculture Economic Statistics Framework The role of the Farm Income and Prices Section and its database The new system for processing farm income and prices data Benefits to be realized Summary and Questions

Evolution of farm structure and farm income issues Agriculture’s place in the Canadian economy: –1.5% of GDP (primary agriculture) –8.1% of GDP (agriculture and agri-food) –13.1% of employment (agriculture and agri- food)

Trend towards fewer but larger farms continues Farm numbers and average farm size Trend towards fewer but larger farms continues Farm numbers and average farm size

Sales are becoming more concentrated in larger operations Smallest percentage of farms needed to account for half of the agricultural sales Sales are becoming more concentrated in larger operations Smallest percentage of farms needed to account for half of the agricultural sales

Agriculture Economic Statistics Framework

The role of the Farm Income and Prices Section and its database Integrator of agriculture data Provider of official statistics on farm performance Provider of expertise on agriculture economic issues Evolving user needs Evolving system for processing farm income and prices data

The new system for processing farm income and prices data Challenges posed by the environment Weaknesses of the existing system Options for an upgraded system

The new system for processing farm income and prices data Project Life Cycle: Analysis and Design Phase Design Challenges –Disciplined workflow and quality assurance measures –Flexibility versus structure

The new system for processing farm income and prices data (Con’d) System Design –Characteristics –User Interface –Database –Load Function –Business Rule Editor –Analysis and Reports

Benefits to be realized Update the existing databases to a more sustainable technology Offer basic standards of quality to make verification easier and reducing the risk of errors Provide consistent definitions of important data such as the period, geographic coverage, source, data quality and confidence indicators Provide an environment less dependent on individuals and more dependent on teams.

Benefits to be realized (Concluded) Allow for flexibility and innovation in analysis Provide a secure environment that protects the data against inadvertent change but allows updates by authorized users Provide a strong systems commitment to maintaining and protecting the system and data Make documentation and training easily available to users

Summary Long history of high-quality unbiased information on the performance of the agricultural sector The agriculture industry, along with farm families, is changing rapidly, impacting measures of farm income and performance Effective and efficient system needed to ensure high- quality data are produced Challenge: to continue to develop and then implement the system as efficiently and quickly as possible while continuing to produce the high-quality data and information required by users Future Developments