From September 4 to October 25, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) will conduct the 2022 Census of Agriculture and Fisheries (CAF) throughout the country to collect basic information from the country’s agricultural and fishery sectors.
The data will serve as relevant bases for policies, plans, and programs for the Philippines’ socio-economic development. It also provides an inventory of agricultural and fishery resources, basic information on crops and livestock, statistics on land distribution and operations, benchmarks for measuring progress, data for local area planning, a sampling frame for surveys, information for monitoring progress toward Sustainable Development Goals, and data needed by the United Nations Organizations for international comparability and observing the global food situation.
“This milestone event signified the beginning of a comprehensive household and barangay data collection process. It underscores the PSA’s commitment to empowering our agricultural and fisheries sectors with accurate information, actionable insights, and a collective vision for the future,” said PSA Undersecretary and National Statistician Claire Dennis S. Mapa during the 2022 CAF press conference.
Mapa added that the 2022 CAF is more than a mere counting and profiling exercise of the country’s agricultural farms and fisheries operations.
“It is an exploration into the heart of our urban and rural communities, where the hard work of our farmers and fishers intersect with the aspirations of our nation,” Mapa said.
Three provinces, namely Pangasinan, Bukidnon, and Iloilo, will have full coverage under the 2022 CAF because of their production volume and value in the country’s agriculture industry. On the other hand, PSA enumerators will also make their rounds in cities as urban farms and community gardens have become more abundant.
PSA aims to release the results of the 2022 CAF by the first quarter of 2024, promising that personal data collected from the respondents
Despite the noble cause of the 2022 CAF, PSA recognizes that their enumerators may still find challenges in meeting with the public. In response, the government agency named actress Bea Alonzo as CAF’s official endorser to help ease the process and gain more mileage.
Moreover, the PSA also partnered with the Department of Science and Technology’s Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI) to use AI (artificial intelligence) to help with more arduous tasks like measuring the size of farms or parcels of land, among other uses.
“This census is the first time we will be employing AI or artificial intelligence because this is a joint project between PSA and DOST-ASTI to help us detect, map, and estimate the area for selected crops and aquafarms,” said Minerva Eloisa P. Esquivias, Officer-In-Charge and Deputy National Statistician of the Censuses and Technical Coordination Office.
She added the new technology will help PSA and its enumerators to complete the necessary information for the 2022 CAF.
Besides the usual paper questionnaire, PSA enumerators will use a tablet to digitize their efforts for productivity and efficiency, marking another first for the government agency. Some innovations they will use include earth observation, remote sensing data, and other developed algorithms.
The 2022 CAF is the seventh in PSA’s decennial agricultural and fisheries census series, with PSA conducting the census every ten years.