1. What information is needed?  Farm income only a partial view of overall household income.  Panel Data  Cross-sectional periods  Number of time periods  Smoothes out farm income fluctuations  Shift away from commodity production as household unit  Why is this information important?  Statistics can be used as policy management tools  To assess how other policies apart from agricultural ones are affecting these households

2. What information is available?  Macroeconomic -V- Microeconomic  Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN)  Off-farm / Non-farm income is often missing  Agricultural Resource Management Study (ARMS)  Small farmers & those with off farm-income regularly excluded  No panel data → limitation  Difficult to compare the total income of farm households against ‘other’ households even on an aggregate level.  Tax incentives and cut backs in the agricultural sector make it inaccurate to use tax files and other related data as a source of information.

3. What are the obstacles to obtaining and using the desired information?  Three obstacles  1. Administrative  Miscommunication between ministries and statistical agencies.  Costs (particularly in the case of new surveys)  Frequency  Legal / confidentiality difficulties preventing the merging of data.  2. Technical  False representation on surveys due to small number of farms.  Wealth information even with International Financial Reporting Standards.  3. Political  Disagreement on content of surveys leads to void or false responses. Hence affecting the rate and quality of responses.

4. How can these obstacles be overcome?  Legal obligations have been implemented by government audit offices.  Changes in policy prompt changes in data collection systems.  Reduce data collection costs. Eg Telephone & Internet surveys  Cost - Benefit would improve if surveys covered a broader scope.  Pressure put on political figures who influence policy and funding decisions.  Improved communication all parties involved

5. How would such information help policy makers?  To assess the nature, cause and extent of income problems.  To define policy objectives with measurable targets.  Design new programmes for anticipated income problems.  Improve current programmes.  Compare alternative options.

6. Conclusion  Public accountability needs to be reviewed at a national and international level.  Process of improvement is long term, the sooner work on improvements begins the sooner things will get better.  Co-operation between countries needed to move forward.  Inter-Secretariat Working Group on Agricultural Statistics (IWG-AGRI)  Main burden of improvements still lies on the shoulders of national Governments.