Ilie Dumitrescu National Institute of Statistics Third International Conference on Agricultural Statistics MEXSAI-ICAS-III Cancun- Mexico, 2-4 November 2004 Lessons learnt from the General Agricultural Census in Romania

Content I. General Environment - Romanian Agriculture II General Agricultural Census (GAC) a. Main Objectives b. Legal Basis III. GAC ; Lessons learnt (SWOT Analysis) IV. Conclusions ROMANIA

Maps

I. General Environment ROMANIA

Structural Dynamics in Romanian Agriculture: Reform program started in the 1990’s. Privatisation of the land resources started with the 1991 land reform. From a planned, centralised farming system, practised on large agricultural areas, the whole system shifted to a shattered one. At present, small-scale farming prevails on most of agricultural area, accompanied by a widespread land fragmentation. I. General Environment ROMANIA

a. Main Objectives 1. to obtain an exhaustive picture of the structural characteristics of the national agricultural system; 2. to built a data base, comparable at international level, regarding the key agricultural variables; 3. to provide a sampling frame for the agricultural sample surveys to be carried out between censuses. II General Census of Agriculture ROMANIA

b. Premises, requirements and standards ? FAO recommendations, provided in the Programme for the World Census of Agriculture 2000: –to conduct a general census of agriculture in 1996 – 2005; –to apply, for harmonisation criteria, the definitions, concepts and characteristics foreseen into the FAO Program for the World Census of Agriculture ? List of characteristics by Eurostat for the FSS 2003; ? National requests, other than the ones mentioned above. II General Census of Agriculture ROMANIA

! Data Collection Methods: –Territory of each municipality divided into census sections (max 200 units/enumerator) –Separate census sections, for units with legal status, set up at the level of each locality; responsible: the chief enumerator) ! Registration Procedure : - by direct interview for holdings/individual agricultural households (physical persons), by enumerators within the distributed sector; - by self-registering for the units with legal status, under the direct supervision of the chief enumerators. II. The Romanian GAC – 2002 ROMANIA

STRENGHTS  Institutional willingness to build up, on new basis, the national agricultural statistical system, in compliance with the statistical requirements of Eurostat.  NIS experience in the methodological approach to agricultural censuses. III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

STRENGHTS  Progressive improvement of competence and accumulation of know-how for NIS census staff (international working groups + seminars + Phare multi- country programmes + FAO training 2002).  Bilateral technical assistance by EU through the Twinning Program, under national Phare III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

STRENGHTS  High skilled top managers, at county level, in conducting and co-ordinating statistical surveys.  Effective training sessions + internal debate on GAC technical instruments.  Efficient utilisation of limited staff and financial resources.  Young persons, skilled in IT and foreign languages, hired at NIS central level. III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

STRENGHTS  Pilot Census in August 2002: testing of census tools and of organisational issues.  Control Survey in February 2003, certified the census coverage and the data quality.  Cost advantages and good skills in census specific activities (Population Census, March 2002):  facilities, at territorial level, improved communication.  Technical and organisational solutions aimed to raise GAC overall quality  Institutional effort for a proper IT endowment. III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

WEAKNESSES  Lack of structural information on Romanian agriculture -> impossibility to set a size threshold before census operations.  Land fragmentation. -> very large number of units for enumeration (preliminary results of the census: 4,760 thou. units, of which 4,737 thou. individual holdings/ households). III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

WEAKNESSES  Lack of clear definition of the agricultural holding, as a statistical observation unit.  Lack of harmonisation between the methodological approach used in the census and the one used in the current statistical surveys.  NO Statistical Farm Register available -> impact on census registering lists.  Lack of an accurate Cadastre register -> impact on census registering lists.  Large number of persons living in other locality than the location of the agr. unit (land owners in urban areas). III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

WEAKNESSES  Existence of three levels of census co-ordination (MAFF, NIS, and MPA).  Lack of a national network of specialised enumerators.  Short time intervals between census milestones (designing, printing and delivering of census tools).  Overlapping of census activities with other projects.  Limited time for the census know-how implementation.  Limited staff, both in term of quantity and skills. III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

OPPORTUNITIES  Experience gained by the Romanian staff involved in census activities  Know-how transfer from the Twinning Project under the National Phare 2000 for compliance of the Romanian agricultural statistical system with EU norms and standards  Harmonisation of national census methodology with EU requirements and FAO recommendations.  Obtaining indicators comparable at international level, for the main agricultural variables. III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

OPPORTUNITIES  Set up the sampling frame needed for the development of the statistical system of surveys in agriculture  Set up the basis for defining a proper threshold, in order to define the Romanian agricultural holding, as statistical observation unit, according to EU requirements and national constraints.  Set up the Statistical Farm Register.  Set up of the global database for the development of the system of agricultural statistics.  Data reconciliation: census results vs. current statistics III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

OPPORTUNITIES  Setting up a national network of specialised trainers and enumerators  Awareness of other Romanian institutional bodies for the need of using the new set of indicators developed under the agricultural census.  Get the interest of the users in the census results and increase their trust in agricultural statistical data. III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA

THREATS  Burden of implementing new requirements at once in all the agricultural statistical domains.  Insufficient human resources for developing on new foundations all the agricultural statistical system, considering the milestones imposed by the EU accession process.  Updating of the Farm Register.  Breaks in time series, as other methodological approaches were in place up to present. III. SWOT Analysis ROMANIA