- Aims and Objectives

Agriculture (from Latin agricultura, composed of "ager" which means "field" and "anger" means cultivating) is a process by which humans adjust their ecosystems to meet the food and economic needs of their societies. It refers to the know-how and all the activities concerned with the exploitation of land and other natural environments (aquatic, aerial) for plant and animal production (including micro-organisms) and the development of other Socio-economic systems for welfare (fishing, hunting, trade, crafts, etc.). The subsystem developed here does not take fishery products into account. It is exclusively dedicated to all products from soil cultivation. Its objectives are to :

• 1. Provide information on the various players in the agricultural production system ;
• 2. Collect information on the different technical methods of production (irrigation, soil cultivation, fertilization, ...) ;
• 3. Collect statistics on holdings (production, area, etc.) ;
• 4. Determine existing or dominant production systems (intensive agriculture, extensive agriculture, sustainable agriculture, etc.) ;

- Concepts and Definitions

Irrigation: Contribution of water on cultivated land to compensate for insufficient precipitation and / or soil water reserves and thus allow the full development of plants.

Irrigation system: devices for bringing water to crops. There are different types of :

• By sprinkling ;
• drip;
• Irrigation canals ;
• With ramp,… ;

Area sown: area covered by a crop Efficiency: maximizing yield with few resources Efficiency of irrigation: maximizing yield by optimizing the quantity of water resources Surplus: Excess over reference Deficit: Gap against reference

- Data Collection and Processing Process

The system is based on the CILSS collection scheme (market missions, harvest estimation, Harmonized Framework, etc.). Describe the food balance cycle To these existing systems, other initiatives must be taken into account, namely :

• Periodic Inquiries ;
• Agricultural Census ;
• Statistical Yearbooks ;
• Technical Notes ;
• Newscast.