BPS Starts the 2023 Agriculture Census

Start from today, until 31 July 2023, BPS-Statistics Indonesia carries out Agriculture Census 2023 (ST2023) in all over region in Indonesia. ST2023 is the 7^th Agriculture Census carried out by BPS, since the first one in 1963. The Agriculture Census is conducted every ten years (in year ending 3) as mandated by the National Law Number 16 of 1997 about Statistics, and also refers to the Food Agriculture Organisation program.

The launching of ST2023 was officially inaugurated by the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo on Monday, 15 May 2023 at Istana Negara, Jakarta. Jokowi stated that agriculture is a strategic sector which involving many people and lives, whether in the production or in the consumption.  Jokowi emphasized that the accurate agriculture data is crucial in making the effective and useful policy. In the launching session, Jokowi also conveyed his support for ST2023 and hope that the result of the census will be precise, up-to-date and trustworthy. The president invited all parties and individuals to support the success of ST2023. BPS also received support from ministries, agencies, local governments, universities, mass media, and agriculture organisations.

BPS-Principal Secretary, Atqo Mardiyanto on the ST2023 Parade Ceremony on Tuesday, May 30 2023 emphasized the strategic role of ST2023 result. The census was expected to be able to provide comprehensive picture of agriculture condition in Indonesia unto the smallest region in the country. Atqo highlighted that the ST2023 results will also be used as the agricultural survey sample frame and as a benchmark of current agricultural statistics. "The ST2023 data is expected to be an internal reference to prepare the strategic policies for the agricultural sector, thereby increasing the quality of design formulated policies," said Atqo.

ST2023 aims to provide agricultural data structure, specifically for the smallest administrative units; provide data that can be used as benchmarks current farming statistics; and providing a sample frame for agricultural surveys. ST2023 will cover seven sub-sectors, which are food crops, horticulture, plantations, animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry, and agricultural services. In ST2023, the activities of agriculture business in all over Indonesia will be recorded, individual business units and corporate business units. A total of 196.000 enumerators were recruited and deployed by BPS to record data on agriculture business actors throughout all province and region in Indonesia. In the implementation, ST2023 uses the multimode data collection innovation, which included 3 ways of capturing data: PAPI (Paper Assisted Personal Interviewing), CAPI (Computed Assisted Personal Interviewing), and CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing).

ST2023 is designed with international standard of statistics involving guidelines from FAO. This is to ensure that the ST2023 will result more comparable, accurate and updated data. ST2023 also captures and involves some of current strategic agricultural issues in Indonesia, such as urban farming, millennial farmers, agricultural modernization, and also income farmers as a proxy for farmer welfare. The active participation of all agricultural business actors is highly expected in the success of ST2023. Please welcome and support the ST2023 enumerator which will come to your resident on 1^st June 1 until 31 July 2023. Let's Record the Agriculture Data for Food Security and Farmer Welfare in Indonesia.