saturday,april10,2010.docVIP

Saturday, April 10, 2010 [First Draft V 1.0] Present State of Food and Agricultural Statistics in Afghanistan {Country Paper presented at Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics (APCAS) held in Siem Reap, Cambodia (26-30 April, 2010)} Abdul Rahman Ghafoori Ghulam Rabani Haqiqatpal Nasharullah Bakhtani This paper lays emphasis on existing state of agricultural statisticsin Afghanistan as regards scope, coverage, frequency of delivery, timeliness, reliability and usefulness. The purpose is to determine the true nature of the problems in these specific areas. Firstly, the sources of available statistics on agriculture are provided and the existing methods of agricultural statistics collection are assessed. Secondly, salient features of the organization and management of agricultural statistics collection are provided. Lastly, findings and conclusions are documented and recommendations are made for the future actions. Introduction Afghanistan is a landlocked, mountainous country. Its population is estimated at 25.5 million in 2009/10 and the area is 652,863 km2. Administratively the country is made up of 34 provinces, which are further divided into 398districts and administrative centres and over 47,500 villages. Agricultural activities are the main livelihood strategies for the Afghan population, as 55 percent of households are engaged in farming and 68 percent have any type of livestock. However, productivity in the agricultural sector is relatively low, as for instance reflected by the 30.6 percent contribution of agriculture to the GDP in 2008-09. The last population census was conducted in 1979. Some non-survey data existed in the next 17 years period that followed. From 1996 to 2002, no official agricultural statistics were collected or compiled in Afghanistan. Starting 2003 some UN agencies, international organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGO) collected agricultural data for their own use, but these were mai