Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The community is “responding favorably” to the American Samoa agriculture census, following an ongoing public awareness program, however the farmers are not.

Farmers are refusing to provide information due to not being compensated from crop damage assessments following last year’s Tropical Storm Gita.

This is according to Commerce Department’s chief statistician Meleisea Vaitoelau Filiga, responding to Samoa News inquiries yesterday, following reports that some local farmers have refused to provide information sought by DOC enumerators for the local agriculture census.

“I encourage all farmers to participate in the survey and treat it seriously. It is important,” DOC director Keniseli Lafaele said yesterday.

Meleisea explained that the 2018 American Samoa Agricultural Census enumeration began May 1st this year, and this is the second month of field data collection.

Under local law, the American Samoa Statistical Act of 2003, DOC-Statistics Division, is empowered to plan, design, and undertake censuses of population and housing, agriculture, establishments, industrial, manufacturing, wholesale/ retail and other local/ federal censuses.

Asked if participation in the agriculture census is mandatory, Meleisea pointed out that it “is a federal census mandated by law to be carried out every five years.”

He said the first local agriculture census was conducted in 1920 together with the Population and Housing census under the direction of US Census Bureau.

Up until 1990, the agricultural census was included with the Population and Housing, but no longer — it was returned to the US Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA NASS); and according to Meleisea, the first census for American Samoa under the USDA NASS was held in 1999 followed by 2003 and 2008.

“In 2013 there was no agricultural census for American Samoa due to lack of federal funds,” he said.

Asked to comment on the importance of the agriculture census, he responded, the “census is taken to obtain agricultural statistics for the Nation as well as each State/ Territory. Census data is used to measure agricultural production and to identify new trends in the agricultural sector.”

Meleisea said the information from the census is used by federal and local government agencies for economic development planning, research and development as well as assessing food security and agricultural losses after natural disasters.

Asked about the number of farmers in the territory with DOC records, he noted that the list of farmers that is being utilized for current census collection is a combined list of data records maintained by the three line agencies — DOC with the business licensing registration, the farm registration list maintained by the Department of Agriculture, and the list of farmers recorded by the ASCC Land Grant.

Another list of sellers to the DOE School Lunch Program is maintained as a check system to make sure all big farmers are covered, he said.

“Unfortunately less than 2,000 farmers/ families with farms are on the current list compared to the last census in 2008 where almost 6,000 families had farms,” he said.

“A lot of farms, whether primarily for commercial or home consumption, are not in the registered list with all three government agencies,” he said, and added that four teams have reached and enumerated close to 1,000 names on the list already.

Meleisea said, “Farmers refused to complete the forms but with ongoing Radio/ TV programs and public awareness, the community is responding favorably with a clear understanding now that this is a federal census and is mandated by law.

“The last resort is the Court but we don’t have to take this route,” he said.

When asked for the reasons cited by farmers for refusing to give information to the DOC teams, Meleisea said, the “major complaint from farmers/ families is that the government is conducting another count of agricultural products but they have not been compensated on crop damage assessments during [Tropical Storm] Gita.”

“Farmers want to know what happened to their crop damage claims and whether they will get some financial assistance from the government,” he stated.

Asked to provide examples of some of the questions on the agriculture census, he explained that the agricultural form asks questions about the types of land use, communal land and privately owned land, acreage usage, types of holdings, home consumption operations versus sales operations, and also asks for detailed info on crops, vegetables, fruits and nuts, livestock, aquaculture farming, including sales and consumption.

Questions on the agriculture census can be forwarded to the DOC statistical division at 633-5155.