Abstract

Experience in the calculation of SDG 2.3.1 and SDG 2.3.2 in Georgia using the Survey of Agricultural Holdings
Goga Talakhadze
Geostat, Agricultural Statistics Division, Agricultural and Environment Statistics Department
30 Tsotne Dadiani Str.
Tbilisi, Georgia
gtalakhadze@geostat.ge
Abstract
This paper reviews the experience of calculating of Target 2.3’s indicators in Georgia. In December 2021 the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat), for the first time, published SDG 2.3.1- Production Volume of Agricultural Holdings per Labour Day, by Holding Size and Gender of Holder (GEL/labour day) and SDG 2.3.2- Average Annual Income of Agricultural Holdings, by Holding Size and Gender of Holder (GEL). These indicators will play an important role for country to measure agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular by gender. Data is published according to the AGRIS (Agricultural Integrated Surveys) program methodological Guidelines calendar, every third reporting year.
Aiming to calculate those indicators Geostat implemented labour and economy module to the Survey of Agricultural Holdings, which is conducted on quarterly bases. At the first stage, the data collected through existing questionnaires were evaluated. The evaluation showed that the main questions from the economy module were already contained in the questionnaire, and only a small part had to be added. A supplementary work was done to add new questions from labour module. Geostat gave this opportunity AGRIS (Agricultural Integrated Surveys) program, to enable it to collect data for agriculture-related SDG indicators 2.3.1 and 2.3.2.
SDG indicator 2.3.1 is to be disaggregated by holding size while SDG indicator 2.3.2 is calculated only for small-scale food producers. Therefore, it is important to determine small-scale producers. In order to calculate small holdings, Geostat is determined by the following three criteria- land area, the total number of livestock, and the total cost of agricultural holding production (output). The holding is small if these three parameters fall into the lower 40 percent of the cumulative distribution. In other cases, the holding is considered to be a medium or large holding.
This paper describes methodologically all the steps that were necessary to calculate the SDG 2.3.2 indicators.
Keywords: SDG, agricultural statistics, Georgia, survey, AGRIS.