Nationwide survey starts measuring agricultural units

TIRANA, Oct. 1 – Some 3,500 pollsters started this week a one-month survey on 350,000 Albanian households conducted by the state institute of statistics to measure Albania’s agricultural units. Announcing the start the project’s field implementation, Ines Nurja, the head of INSTAT, described the agricultural census as the best opportunity to gather accurate data in order to draft policies of sustainable development in agriculture.
“The registration of agriculture will enable the establishment of a Register of Agricultural Economic Units and will contribute to secure a database stable over time, both demographic and social-economic at a national, regional and local level. The census results will also have a key role in the future determination of the farms’ programme, transport and marketing of agricultural products, rural development, the manufacturing practices, new agricultural technologies and subsidy programmes,” said Nurja.
The new survey comes fourteen years after the last census of agricultural economic units.
The census will also help establish an updated farm register in order to produce reliable agriculture statistics in line with EU requirements that will contribute to improvement of the National Account System in Albania and the establishment of a regular system of sample-based farm surveys.
The general census of agricultural economic units back in 1998 enabled INSTAT to create then an accurate overview on the sector structure. However, lack of other ongoing statistical activities resulted in the lack of outcomes to measure development. Insufficient information on structures of agricultural holdings, production and distribution of agricultural and livestock products, and the periodical changes of livestock heads are some of the issues statistics on agriculture currently face, says the European Commission.
Agriculture is one of the largest and most important sectors of the Albanian economy. The economic activity “agriculture, hunting and forestry” is the largest employer (44 per cent) and the second largest economic sector by value added (19 per cent). Agricultural employment has declined rapidly, but it is still very high in international comparison. The sector’s share in value added has declined in the last five years less rapidly than in the second half of the 1990s. Albania is the most agriculture-oriented country in the Western Balkans. The share of agriculture in value added is around or below 10 per cent in all the other Western Balkan countries expect for Macedonia with its share somewhat higher than 11 percent, according to Eurostat.