Updating sampling frames for agricultural statistics: approaches, challenges and issues

The traditional approach for producing agricultural statistics adopted in most developed countries is the following (see Benedetti et al. eds. 2010): a complete enumeration census is carried out every 5-10 years. The census is carried out by interviewing the farmers and allows generating the list frame that is used for all kinds of sample surveys of farms. In this paper, the quality of data collected by a census and the coverage of the list generated by a census are discussed. The impact of incomplete or out of date sampling frames for agricultural statistics is analysed. Some approaches for updating the sampling frames, the problems involved and the difficulties faced are addressed. Then, different kinds of sampling frame and estimation approaches are analysed, taking into consideration the specificities of countries.