Sri Lanka - Crop Estimating Survey on Paddy (Yala) - 2011

Start	End	Cycle
2011-01-01	2011-12-31	Yala

Face-to-face [f2f]
Crop Cutting Officers: Once the list of villages are transmitted to the Statistics Branch of the respective District, the Head of the Division Deputy Director/Senior Statistician/Statistician has to identify the crop cutting officers who are to be suitable for conducting these experiments in the selected villages. Guideline is to choose them preferably out of the field officers attached to the respective DS Divisions who are related to the discipline of agriculture such as Agricultural Officers/Agricultural Instructors of the Ministry of Agriculture, Divisional Officers of Department of Agrarian Development, Colonization Officers, etc. in addition to the Range Statistical Officers of DCS. Range Statistical Officers should undertake at least three experiments in his range. The direction is to discuss this matter in the District Agriculture Committee Meeting (DAC) held once in a month chaired by District Secretary/Government Agent and then assign the villages in concurrence with the DS/GA

The Statistical officer (SO) or the Agriculture Instructor (AI) in the area visits the selected paddy land along with the farmer and cuts the crop in the demarcated area. The crop is measured in Seers then and there and the yield is recorded. Then in the same way yield for the other parcel is recorded. The crop collected for measuring is returned to the farmer. In addition to the yield recorded in this manner, other relevant information requested in the form C.C.3 has to be collected .

Ancillary Information: When crop cuttings are done in the field, in addition to sample fields selected for crop cuttings, an extra set of sample (four parcels) fields are selected to collect ancillary information related to the paddy crop viz. usage inputs, system of tenure, variety of seed, etc. Along with the final estimates on production and average yield the estimated extent related to the above characteristics are being disseminated.

Name	Abbreviation	Affiliation

“Agricultural Research and Production Assistants (ARPO) earlier known as “Govi Sevana Niyamakas” of Agrarian Development Department attached to Agrarian Service Centers do play the role of “Primary Reporters” to report the extent in P1 form which is parcel-wise enumeration of all paddy growing parcels.

They list out the area Asweddumized, Sown and Harvested in Maha and Yala seasons at village/Yaya,Tract/Kandam in the prescribed form. Here the “paddy parcel” is defined to be piece/plot of land cultivated by one individual farmer or group of farmers jointly surrounded by another paddy parcel cultivated by another individual farmer or group of farmers or any land cultivated with crops other than paddy or uncultivated land such as road, stream etc.

The paddy extent thus enumerated is summarized by Village/Yaya/Tract/Kandam and transferred to the form known as P2 which gives the aggregate extent under paddy by above categories and by irrigation modes at GN division level and by DS level. This form is prepared by the Range Statistical Officer attached to a particular DS. During the Yala season the sown and harvested extents are recorded while asweddumized extent is updated, only if there occurs a change.

However, it is to be noted that the Districts where ARPOs are not appointed, Grama Niladaris (GNN) are still acting as primary reporters for the collection of paddy statistics as well as other agricultural statistics. This is specifically true for Northern and Eastern Provinces.

The aggregate extent prepared for DS level leads to the compilation of paddy extent at various higher levels such as District and All Island Level. It is important to note that the extent reported/listed in the P1 form is the “Gross Extent” since the extent of most of the paddy parcels are not based on any cadastral survey or measures, but reported extent are based on seed rates or traditional measurement or guesstimates as per the knowledge of respective farmers. This gross extent is ultimately converted to net-extent by applying correction factors which were determined at District level through a land measurement survey carried out by means of a sample of paddy parcels with the assistance of the Survey General Department in 1970s.

The list prepared by the primary reporters in the P1 form acts as the basis for the selection of sample of paddy parcels while the list of paddy growing villages compiled in the P2 form acts the basis to select villages for the National Crop Cutting Survey on Paddy conducted by the Agriculture and Environment Statistics Division of DCS.