Abstract

The main objective of the Pilot Survey was to test the adequacy of the survey instruments, equipments and administration of questionnaires, data processing arrangement and report writing. The Pilot survey conducted in July 2007 covered the two NBS survey system-the National Integrated Survey of Households (NISH) and National Integrated Survey of Establishment (NISE). The survey instruments were designed to be applied using the two survey systems while the use of Geographic Positioning System (GPS) was introduced as additional new tool for implementing the project.

The programme for the World Census of Agriculture 2000 is the eighth in the series for promoting a global approach to agricultural census taking. The first and second programmes were sponsored by the International Institute for Agriculture (IITA) in 1930 and 1940. Subsequent ones up to 1990 were promoted by (FAO). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recommends that each country should conduct at least one agricultural census in each census programme decade and its programme for the World Census of Agriculture 2000 for instance corresponds to Agricultural Census to be undertaken during the decade 1996 to 2005. Many countries do not have sufficient resources for conducting an agricultural census. It therefore became an acceptable practice since 1960 to conduct agricultural census on sample basis for those countries lacking the resources required for a complete enumeration.

In Nigeria's case, a combination of complete enumeration and sample enumeration is adopted whereby the rural (peasant) holdings are covered on sample basis while the modern holdings are covered on complete enumeration. The project named "National Agricultural Sample Census" derives from this practice. Nigeria through the National Agricultural Sample Census (NASC) participated in the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's programmes of the World Census of Agriculture. Nigeria failed to conduct the Agricultural Census in 2003/2004 because of lack of funding.

The NBS regular annual agriculture surveys since 1996 had been epileptic and many years of backlog of data set are still unprocessed. The baseline agricultural data is yet to be updated while the annual regular surveys suffered set back. There is an urgent need by the Governments (Federal, State, LGA), sector agencies, FAO and other International Organizations to come together to undertake the agricultural census exercise which is long overdue. The conduct of 2006/2008 National Agricultural Sample Census Survey is now on course with the pilot exercise carried out in the third quarter of 2007.

The National Agricultural Sample Census (NASC) 2006/08 is imperative to the strengthening of the weak agricultural data in Nigeria. The project is phased into three sub-projects for ease of implementation; the Pilot Survey, Modern Agricultural Holding and the Main Census. It commenced in the third quarter of 2006 and to terminate in the first quarter of 2008. The pilot survey was implemented collaboratively by National Bureau of Statistics.

The Stakeholders workshop held at Kaduna on 21st-23rd May 2007 was one of the initial bench marks for the take off of the Pilot Survey. The Pilot Survey implementation started with the first level training (Training of Trainers) at the NBS Headquarters between 13th - 15th June 2007. The second level training for all levels of field personnels was implemented at Headquarters of the twelve (12) concerned states between 2nd - 6th July 2007. The field work of the Pilot Survey commenced on the 9th July and ended on the 13th of July 07. The CSpro and SPSS were the statistical packages used to develop the data entry programme. The results of the survey are presented in chapter three of this report.

The owner-like possession was the most common system nationwide with a figure of 2,083,503 (holding) followed by family land 962,233 (holding) while squatter was the least system used 40,473 (holding). Distribution of holding by type of land showed that three types of land-upland, lowland and irrigated were mostly used with irrigated land being the highest 5,825,531 holding followed by lowland 5,320,782 holding and upland 3,070,911 holdings with the highest holding within the age group of 25-44 years. In all states, 2,392,725 males were involved in crop farming while 540,070 females were also paticipating. Out of the 11 major crops reported, cassava recorded the highest number of farms 2,649,098 farms, next was maize 2,199,352 and yam 2,042,440 farms while the least was cotton 46,287 farms. Other crops were Beans, Cocoyam, Groundnut, Guinea corn, melon, Millet and Rice.

Geographic coverage

State

Analysis unit

Household crop farmers

Universe

Crop Farming Household

Kind of data

Census/enumeration data [cen]

Sampling procedure

12 states were purposely selected in the country. 2 states from each of the 6 geo-political zones. 2 LGAs per selected state were studied. 2 Rural EAs per LGA were covered and 4 Crop farming Housing Units were systematically selected and canvassed .

Sampling deviation

No deviation

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The questionnaire for the Private Farmers (Holding) is a structured questionnaire based on household characteristics with some modifications and additions. The questionnaire contains the following sections. Holding identification Holding Characteristics Access to Land Access to Credit and Funds Used Production input utilization; quantity and cost Sources of inputs/equipment Area Harvested. Agric Machinery. Production. Farm Expenditure. Processing Facilities. Storage Facilities. Employment in Agric. Farm Expenditure. Sales. Consumption. Market Channels. Livestock Farming. Fish Farming.

Cleaning operations

The data processing and analysis plan involved five main stages: training of data processing staff; manual editing and coding.

Development of data entry programme; data entry and editing and tabulation. Census and Surveys Processing System (CSPro) software were used for data entry, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Census and Surveys Processing System (CSPro) for editing and a combination of SPSS, Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) and EXCEL for table generation.

The subject-matter specialists and computer personnel from the NBS and CBN implemented the data processing work. Tabulation Plans were equally developed by these officers for their areas and topics covered in the three-survey system used for the exercise. The data editing is in 2 phases namely manual editing before the data entry were done. This involved using editors at the various zones to manually edit and ensure consistency in the information on the questionnaire. The second editing is the computer editing, this is the cleaning of the already enterd data.

The completed questionnaires were collated and edited manually (a) Office editing and coding were done by the editor using visual control of the questionnaire before data entry (b) Cspro was used to design the data entry template provided as external resource (c) Ten operator plus two suppervissor and two progammer were used (d) Ten machines were used for data entry (e) After data entry data entry supervisor runs fequency on each section to see that all the questionnaire were enterd

Response rate

The response rate at EA level was 100 percent while 98.44 was achieved at crop farming housing units level

Sampling error estimates

No computation of sampling error

Data appraisal

The Quality Control measures were carried out during the survey, essentially to ensure quality of data. There were two levels of supervision involving the supervisors at the first level, NBS State Officers and Zonal Controllers at second level and finally the NBS Headquarters staff constituting the second level supervision.

Abstract

The main objective of the Pilot Survey was to test the adequacy of the survey instruments, equipments and administration of questionnaires, data processing arrangement and report writing. The Pilot survey conducted in July 2007 covered the two NBS survey system-the National Integrated Survey of Households (NISH) and National Integrated Survey of Establishment (NISE). The survey instruments were designed to be applied using the two survey systems while the use of Geographic Positioning System (GPS) was introduced as additional new tool for implementing the project.

The programme for the World Census of Agriculture 2000 is the eighth in the series for promoting a global approach to agricultural census taking. The first and second programmes were sponsored by the International Institute for Agriculture (IITA) in 1930 and 1940. Subsequent ones up to 1990 were promoted by (FAO). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recommends that each country should conduct at least one agricultural census in each census programme decade and its programme for the World Census of Agriculture 2000 for instance corresponds to Agricultural Census to be undertaken during the decade 1996 to 2005. Many countries do not have sufficient resources for conducting an agricultural census. It therefore became an acceptable practice since 1960 to conduct agricultural census on sample basis for those countries lacking the resources required for a complete enumeration.

In Nigeria's case, a combination of complete enumeration and sample enumeration is adopted whereby the rural (peasant) holdings are covered on sample basis while the modern holdings are covered on complete enumeration. The project named "National Agricultural Sample Census" derives from this practice. Nigeria through the National Agricultural Sample Census (NASC) participated in the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's programmes of the World Census of Agriculture. Nigeria failed to conduct the Agricultural Census in 2003/2004 because of lack of funding.

The NBS regular annual agriculture surveys since 1996 had been epileptic and many years of backlog of data set are still unprocessed. The baseline agricultural data is yet to be updated while the annual regular surveys suffered set back. There is an urgent need by the Governments (Federal, State, LGA), sector agencies, FAO and other International Organizations to come together to undertake the agricultural census exercise which is long overdue. The conduct of 2006/2008 National Agricultural Sample Census Survey is now on course with the pilot exercise carried out in the third quarter of 2007.

The National Agricultural Sample Census (NASC) 2006/08 is imperative to the strengthening of the weak agricultural data in Nigeria. The project is phased into three sub-projects for ease of implementation; the Pilot Survey, Modern Agricultural Holding and the Main Census. It commenced in the third quarter of 2006 and to terminate in the first quarter of 2008. The pilot survey was implemented collaboratively by National Bureau of Statistics.

The Stakeholders workshop held at Kaduna on 21st-23rd May 2007 was one of the initial bench marks for the take off of the Pilot Survey. The Pilot Survey implementation started with the first level training (Training of Trainers) at the NBS Headquarters between 13th - 15th June 2007. The second level training for all levels of field personnels was implemented at Headquarters of the twelve (12) concerned states between 2nd - 6th July 2007. The field work of the Pilot Survey commenced on the 9th July and ended on the 13th of July 07. The CSpro and SPSS were the statistical packages used to develop the data entry programme. The results of the survey are presented in chapter three of this report.

The owner-like possession was the most common system nationwide with a figure of 2,083,503 (holding) followed by family land 962,233 (holding) while squatter was the least system used 40,473 (holding). Distribution of holding by type of land showed that three types of land-upland, lowland and irrigated were mostly used with irrigated land being the highest 5,825,531 holding followed by lowland 5,320,782 holding and upland 3,070,911 holdings with the highest holding within the age group of 25-44 years. In all states, 2,392,725 males were involved in crop farming while 540,070 females were also paticipating. Out of the 11 major crops reported, cassava recorded the highest number of farms 2,649,098 farms, next was maize 2,199,352 and yam 2,042,440 farms while the least was cotton 46,287 farms. Other crops were Beans, Cocoyam, Groundnut, Guinea corn, melon, Millet and Rice.

Geographic coverage

State

Analysis unit

Household based

Universe

Household

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

12 states were purposely selected in the country. 2 states from each of the 6 geo-political zones. 2 LGAs per selected state were studied. 2 Rural EAs per LGA were covered and 5 Housing Units were systematically selected and canvassed for GHS data.

Sampling deviation

No Deviation

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The questionnaire for the Private Farmers (Holding) is a structured questionnaire based on household characteristics with some modifications and additions. The questionnaire contains the following sections. Holding identification Holding Characteristics Access to Land Access to Credit and Funds Used Production input utilization; quantity and cost Sources of inputs/equipment Area Harvested. Agric Machinery. Production. Farm Expenditure. Processing Facilities. Storage Facilities. Employment in Agric. Farm Expenditure. Sales. Consumption. Market Channels. Livestock Farming. Fish Farming.

Cleaning operations

The data editing is in 2 phases namely manual editing before the questionnaires were scanned. This involved using editors at the various zones to manually edit and ensure consistency in the information on the questionnaire. The second editing is the computer editing, this is the cleaning of the already scanned data. The subject-matter specialists and computer personnel from the NBS and CBN implemented the data processing work. Tabulation Plans were equally developed by these officers for their areas and topics covered in the three-survey system used for the exercise.

The data editing is in 2 phases namely manual editing before the data entry were done. This involved using editors at the various zones to manually edit and ensure consistency in the information on the questionnaire. The second editing is the computer editing, this is the cleaning of the already enterd data. The completed questionnaires were collated and edited manually

(a) Office editing and coding were done by the editor using visul contro of the questionnaire before data entry (b) Cspro was used to design the data entry template provided as external resource (c) Ten operator plus two suppervissor and two progammer were used (d) Ten machines were used for data entry (e) After data entry data entry supervisor runs fequency on each section to see that all the questionnaire were enterd

Response rate

On state basis, 100 percent response rate was acheived at EA level .

While 99.6 percent was recorded at housing units level.

Sampling error estimates

No computation of sampling error

Data appraisal

The Quality Control measures were carried out during the survey, essentially to ensure quality of data. There were two levels of supervision involving the supervisors at the first level, NBS State Officers and Zonal Controllers at second level and finally the NBS Headquarters staff constituting the second level supervision.