How we work
National statistical offices (NSOs) and ministries of agriculture (MoA) are at the center of the solution and will lead in developing and executing the program to suit their country's needs. NSOs, MoAs, and other relevant agencies will determine the design and implementation of their survey programs with technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The Initiative scales up and builds upon the experiences of existing and tested survey methods already up and running: FAO’s Agricultural Integrated Survey (AGRISurvey) Programme and the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA).
The implementation of the Initiative is carried out under three Implementation Components: Data Production, Methods and Tools Development and Data Use.
Data Production
The Initiative offers two survey models that address SDG2 data needs and build national data systems. Countries can choose to implement either an agricultural survey program or an integrated agricultural and rural survey program, depending on their respective needs, wishes, capacity, and potential for technical and financial take-over. FAO’s Statistics Division (ESS) will lead this component and all data production activities.
The Agricultural Survey Program
The Agricultural Survey Program is designed to provide complete, fully representative data on agriculture from both household and non-household (commercial) farms over a 10-year cycle. Like the AGRISurvey program, it has a modular approach that joins an annual core module and several periodic rotating modules that cover vital socioeconomic and environmental variables. Its flexible modular approach creates a survey system that can respond to emerging demands at regional, national, or international levels.
The Integrated Agricultural and Rural Survey Program
The Integrated Agricultural and Rural Survey Program will combine a farm-based agricultural survey program with a household-based rural socioeconomic survey program. Within a country’s statistical system, an integrated approach is ideal as it produces more data, increased data interoperability, and greater cost efficiencies.
As with the agricultural program, the integrated program collects data from a representative sample of all agricultural enterprises — household and non-household — on agricultural topics like production, revenues, and farm practices. Building on that, the integrated program incorporates surveys of rural households that cover socioeconomic and demographic topics like income, poverty, employment, and food security.
Methods and Tools Development
Alongside these survey programs, the 50x2030 Initiative will prioritize critical methodological research for agricultural and rural surveys to produce more efficient and cost-effective tools. Based on priorities among the 50x2030 partners, the work under this component will fall under three main pillars: integration of survey approaches; integration of technology, updating of methodologies; integration with other data sources.
Since the 50x2030 Initiative aims to accelerate the development and adoption of innovative and cost-effective survey methods, the on-going and planned activities of the GRAInS partnership will be subsumed into the Initiative. The World Bank’s Center for Development Data (C4D2) will lead the component on methods development, in line with the 50x2030 goal to accelerate the development and adoption of innovative and cost-effective survey methods.
Data Use
50x2030 also strives to build the capacity and motivation of decisionmakers to use data, to strengthen data producers to align with decisionmaker needs, and to improve data sharing and open data. The Initiative will ensure increased and improved use of survey data to inform decision making by key actors and spur agricultural growth, through activities designed to produce the following outputs:
- stronger capacity to analyze, interpret, and present data;
- stronger capacity of decision-makers to interpret and apply data;
- improved data sharing and communication practices in partner governments.
Within the Initiative, data-use activities will be designed and implemented by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a clear fit given IFAD’s strategic role in policy engagement and building evidence and knowledge to promote sustainable rural transformation in partner countries.