Indicator 2.3.1 Volume of production per labour unit by classes of farming/pastoral/forestry enterprise size

Indicator 2.3.1: Volume of production per labour unit by classes of farming/pastoral/forestry enterprise size

Target 2.3: By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Definition:

Volume of agricultural production of small-scale food producer in crop, livestock, fisheries, and forestry activities per number of days worked. The indicator is computed as a ratio of annual output to the number of working days in one year. As the indicator is referred to a set of production units – those of a small scale — the denominator needs to summarize information on the entire production undertaken in each unit. This requires that volumes of production are reported in a common numeraire, given that it is impossible to sum up physical units. The most convenient numeraire for aggregating products in the numerator is a vector of constant prices. When measured at different points in time, as required by the monitoring of the SDG indicators, changes in constant values represent aggregated volume changes.

FAO proposes to define small-scale food producers as producers who:

• operate an amount of land falling in the first two quintiles (the bottom 40 percent) of the cumulative distribution of land size at national level (measured in hectares); and
• operate a number of livestock falling in the first two quintiles (the bottom 40 percent) of the cumulative distribution of the number of livestock per production unit at national level (measured in Tropical Livestock Units – TLUs); and
• obtain an annual economic revenue from agricultural activities falling in the first two quintiles (the bottom 40 percent) of the cumulative distribution of economic revenues from agricultural activities per production unit at national level (measured in Purchasing Power Parity Dollars) not exceeding 34,387 Purchasing Power Parity Dollars.

Concepts:

• The following concepts are adopted for the computation of indicators 2.3.1:
• Small-scale food producers are defined as those falling in the intersection of the bottom 40 percent of the cumulative distribution of land, livestock and revenues.
• Tropical Livestock Units are a conversion scale used for standardization and measurement of the number of livestock heads. One TLU is the metabolic weight equivalent of one cattle in North America. The complete list of conversion factors can be found in the Guidelines for the preparation of livestock sector Reviews
• The concept of productivity is standardized by OECD’s Manual for Measuring Productivity. This defines productivity as “a ratio of a volume measure of outputs to a volume measure of input use.” More information on possible definitions can be found in “Productivity and Efficiency Measurement in Agriculture: Literature Review and Gaps Analysis”.

Constant PPP USD 2017.

Given that indicator 2.3.1 is measured on a target population of producers – those considered as small-scale – the ideal data source for measuring it is a single survey that collects all the information required with reference to individual production units. The most appropriate data source for collecting information on total value of agricultural production and on labour input adopted on the agricultural holding would be agricultural surveys. Other possibilities to be explored in absence of an agricultural surveys are:

1. household surveys integrated with an agricultural module,
2. agricultural censuses,
3. administrative data.

National Statistical Offices or other institutions involved in agricultural surveys, such as dedicated statistics offices of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Given the approved methodology, the computation of the indicator requires survey microdata collected at the farm level on a wide range of variables – including all elements that allow computing revenues and costs of the enterprise, together with labour input and the availability of land and livestock – referred to the same production unit. Such type of surveys are seldom collected at the national level. For this reason, the availability of data for the indicator is altogether limited. In some countries, data can be obtained from household surveys reporting details on agricultural production. These data sources have to be considered as second-best solution, given that their sampling is focused on households and not on food production units. While in many countries there is a considerable degree of overlap between the population of food producers and households, this is still a partial overlap, which can undermine the accuracy of the computation.

Computation Method:

$\mathrm{S}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{G}\mathrm{\ }2.3.1=I_{2.3.1}^t=\sum _{j=1}^n\left(\frac{\sum _i{V}_{ij}^t{p}_{ij}^t}{{Ld}_j^t}\right)/n$

where:

$V_{ij}^t$ is the physical volume of agricultural product i sold by the small-scale food producer j during year t;

$p_{ij}^t$ is the constant sale price received by the small-scale food producer j for the agricultural product i during same year t;

${Ld}_j^t$ is the number of labour days utilized by the small-scale food producer j during year t;

$n\mathrm{\ }$is the number of small-scale food producers.

As the indicator is referred to a set of production units – those of a small scale — the denominator needs to summarize information on the entire production undertaken in each unit. This requires that volumes of production are reported in a common numeraire, given that it is impossible to sum up physical units. The most convenient numeraire for aggregating products in the numerator is a vector of constant prices. When measured at different points in time, as required by the monitoring of the SDG indicators, changes in constant values represent aggregated volume changes.

2024-07-29

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

SDG indicator 2.3.2

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