Liberia Agriculture Census 2024 - Community Operations
Liberia, 2024
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LBR_2024_LAC_v01_M_v01_A_ESS
Liberia Agriculture Census 2024 - Community Operations
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Liberia | LBR |
Agricultural Census [ag/census]
The LAC-2024 is an Integrated census/survey programme conducted in line with the WCA 2020 recommendations. The census also aligned with the objective of the 50x2030 Initiative to Close the Agricultural Data Gap. The LAC-2024 is expected to be followed by a series of annual modular agriculture surveys, including the 2024 income, labour and productivity (ILP) and the 2025 production methods and environment (PME) surveys. As part of the census operations, community-level information was collected through focus group discussions with community leaders and other knowledgeable persons within the community.
The LAC-2024 also includes the Liberia Agriculture Census 2024 - Household Listing study: https://microdata.fao.org/index.php/catalog/2711.
The Government of Liberia and its development partners recognized agriculture as a pivotal sector in fostering economic growth, reducing poverty, and achieving food security. Since the post-war period (insert dates), the government in collaboration with development partners, has made substantial investments to develop and expand the agriculture sector. Over the years, policymakers and data users in the agriculture sector have experienced significant challenges in obtaining the data needed to monitor and evaluate these interventions and make informed decisions on new interventions. To address these challenges, the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) conducted several ad hoc agricultural surveys. While valuable, these surveys have often been limited in scope and unable to provide the comprehensive data needed for effective policymaking and planning. To support the sector more robustly, the government decided to undertake a comprehensive agricultural census: the Liberia Agriculture Census 2024, the second agricultural census in Liberia since 1971 and the first to be conducted digitally, aimed to collect structural and reliable data on various aspects of the agricultural sector.
The main objectives of the LAC-2024 was to:
· Reduce the existing data gap in Liberia's agriculture sector.
· Provide comprehensive data on the agriculture sector for policy formulation and evaluation of existing programmes.
· Enable LISGIS to establish an agriculture master sampling frame for future agricultural surveys and research.
· Identify the structural changes in the agriculture sector over time.
· Provide information on crop, livestock, poultry, and aquaculture activities.
· Determine the size, composition, practices and related characteristics of Liberia's agricultural holdings.
· Generate disaggregated agriculture statistics.
· Provide statistics for advocacy on Liberia's agriculture sector.
· Identify agricultural practices and constraints at the community level.
To achieve these objectives, the LAC-2024 was designed to collect structural data at the household, non-household and community levels. The data provided a wealth of information on the state of agriculture in Liberia. This documentation provides information on how data was collected at the community level. The documentation also provides useful information on the community anonymized dataset.
Census/enumeration data [cen]
Agricultural Communities
Scope
The Community form focuses on key areas such as agricultural activities, agricultural facilities, agricultural workers, land characteristics, services, and communal resources and events.
Coverage
National coverage
The universe for the Liberia Agriculture Census 2024 community operations is: all communities (localities) in Liberia that are located within an agricultural enumeration area.
Producers and sponsors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services | Government of Liberia |
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Ministry of Agriculture | Government of Liberia | Collaborator |
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | United Nations | Technical assistance |
| 50x2030 Initiative | Global partnership program led by the World Bank (WB), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) | Technical and financial support for the design, implementation, and analysis of the survey |
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Government of Liberia | Funder |
| World Bank | Funder |
Sampling
Focus group interviews were conducted in communities in the EAs selected for the sample census. A sampled community had the same probability of selection and sample weight as the EA. If a community was linked to many EAs, additional adjustment for multiplicity was performed.
The LAC-2024 community operations engaged 61,600 respondents across 7,193 sampled communities. Nationally, the distribution of respondents shows that males were 66.1% of the total 61,600 participants, while females were 33.9%.
100%
Census weights were applied to the dataset.
Survey instrument
The LAC-2024 employed three questionnaires: the Household Questionnaire, the Community Questionnaire and the Non-Household Questionnaire. These three questionnaires were based on the 50x2030 Initiative standard model questionnaires. The Liberia Agriculture Census Technical Working Group (LAC-TWG), comprising technical staff from LISGIS,Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), National Fishery and Aquaculture Authority (NaFAA), Cooperative Development Agency (CDA) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) worked with technicians from the 50x2030 Initiative to adapt the questionnaires to Liberia's context and realities. Suggestions and inputs were solicited from various stakeholders representing government ministries, agencies and commissions (termed MACsby LISGIS), nongovernmental and international organizations as well as academic institutions researching agricultural issues. All questionnaires were finalized in English. Some questions in the questionnaires were translated into simple Liberian English, to ease administration.
The community questionnaire included the following sections:
1-respondents characteristics;
2- production and processing activities in the community;
3- land characteristics and irrigation in the community;
4- markets to sell agriculture products;
5- access to agricultural inputs, services and credits in the community;
6- social cohesion;
7- difficulties in agricultural activities;
8- livestock and Poultry Production;
9- environment;
10- disasters and shocks;
11- community infrastructure and transportation;
12- community organizations;
13- community resource management;
14- land prices and credit;
15- community key events;
16- labour and producer prices.
Data collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2024-01-22 | 2024-03-22 |
- Focus Group [foc]
The data collection was carried out from January to March 2024, covering all counties in Liberia. Teams of enumerators conducted interviews using tablets with CAPI (Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing) software. The process included household interviews, community group discussions, and observational methods.
The LAC-2024 data collection at the community level was conducted by the 60 supervisors of the teams. The supervisors' work was coordinated by 11 regional and 22 national monitors, who routinely visited teams, checked data quality, flagged and corrected potential errors and provided in-field training where necessary. 30 data quality assurance officers (one in each county) were deployed to assist the supervisors with technical issues of the CAPI applications. At LISGIS central office, there were 5 monitors, called HQ monitors, who monitored the LAC-2024 dashboard daily and reported all identified errors and inconsistencies in data captured to regional and national monitors for appropriate actions.
Data collection faced challenges such as difficult terrain and poor internet connectivity, which caused delays in data synchronization. Despite these challenges, supervision and regular quality checks ensured data reliability.
Data processing
The data was edited using CSpro software, version 7.7.3. The appropriate edit rules were established by programmers and subject matter specialists at LISGIS and MOA.
In a few cases, manual editing was applied to recode the "other specify" category. The SPSS software was used for this purpose.
Data Access
| Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required? | Confidentiality declaration text |
|---|---|
| yes |
Confidentiality of respondents is guaranteed by the National Statistics and Geo-Information Act of Liberia, enacted 2004 and the United Nations Fundamental Principles on Official Statistics, specifically principle six. Before being granted access to the dataset, all users have to formally agree: 1. To make no copies of any files or portions of files to which s/he is granted access except those authorized by LISGIS. 2. Not to use any technique in an attempt to learn the identity of any person, household, non-household or community not identified on public use data files. 3. To hold in strictest confidence the identification of any establishment or individual that may be inadvertently revealed in any documents or discussion, or analysis. Such inadvertent identification revealed in her/his analysis will be immediately brought to the attention of the data depositor. |
The dataset has been anonymized and is available as a Public Use Dataset. It is accessible to all for statistical and research purposes only, under the following terms and conditions:
-
The data and other materials will not be redistributed or sold to other individuals, institutions, or organizations without the written agreement of LISGIS.
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The data will be used for statistical and scientific research purposes only. They will be used solely for reporting of aggregated information, and not for investigation of specific individuals or organizations.
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No attempt will be made to re-identify respondents, and no use will be made of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently. Any such discovery would immediately be reported to LISGIS.
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No attempt will be made to produce links among datasets provided by LISGIS, or among data from LISGIS and other datasets that could identify individuals or organizations.
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Any books, articles, conference papers, theses, dissertations, reports, or other publications that employ data obtained from LISGIS will cite the source of data in accordance with the Citation Requirement provided with each dataset.
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An electronic copy of all reports and publications based on the requested data will be sent to LISGIS.
The original collectors of the data, LISGIS, MOA, and the relevant funding agencies bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services. Liberia Agriculture Census 2024(LAC-2024) , Ref. LBR-LAC-2024_v01. Dataset downloaded from https://lisgis.gov.lr/ or microdata.lisgislr.org
Disclaimer and copyrights
The user of the data acknowledges that the authorized distributor of the data (i.e., LISGIS), MOA and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services | Government of Liberia | [email protected] | https://lisgis.gov.lr/ |
| Matthew Wantoe, Director for ICT Division | Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services | [email protected] | https://lisgis.gov.lr/ |
Metadata production
DDI_LBR_2024_LAC-COM_v01_M_v01_A_ESS_FAO
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services | Government of the Republic of Liberia | Documentation of the study |
| Ministry of Agriculture | Government of the Republic of Liberia | Documentation of the study |
| Statistics Division | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | Technical assistance / Metadata adapted for FAM |