Speaking at a national workshop on improvement of agricultural statistics organised by the directorate of economics and statistics, Srivastava said that the demand for forecasting estimates is not limited to making assessment of crop during the period but also for making policy decisions on food security, price stability, procurement, distribution, imports & exports and for provision of storage facilities.

Srivastava said that deficiency in primary data collection was plaguing agricultural statistics in India. He said that there was an urgent need to address technical problems at ground levels. "The entire planning in agriculture depends on advance estimates of crops and we must improve our data collection, drawing upon advances in science and technology," Srivastava said at the inaugural function of the two-day workshop.

He said improvements were very slow in coming and much of the data was still collected through `patwaris', who were powerful figures at the village levels. Srivastava added that such data was not sufficient and efforts should be made to make available more correct and more updated information.

According to secretary of National Statistical Commission, Bhaskar Saha, agriculture statistics lack reliability, speed and authenticity. India must strive to improve its statistical information, especially data dissemination standards, to be at par with developed countries, he said. "There is a need to train patwaris and strengthen the system of collection of data at grassroot level.

Srivastava said that the government would take note of the deliberations at the workshop and the conclusions reached and would try to implement them for the improvement of agricultural statistics.