benefits in terms of food security, job creation, technology transfer, capital accumulation, export promotion, and environmental sustainability led the government’s latest 5-year Growth and Transformation Program (GTP) to put considerable focus on investment in commercial farms. To assess if such benefits materialize, reliable information on large farms’ productivity is essential. A ‘State Farms Survey’ completely enumerate the universe of commercial farms had been part of the country’s annual agricultural sample survey from the very beginning. Yet, the underlying data were based on farms’ administrative records rather than actual enumeration with often little relationship to field realities.<sup>5</sup> To reduce such reliance on secondary sources, CSA included a complete enumeration of commercial farms, using a sample frame assembled from information provided by zonal investment offices,<sup>6</sup> in its 2001/02 agricultural sample enumeration. However, high non-response and weak supervision reduced data quality. Although large and medium commercial farm surveys (LMSCFS) were conducted on a regular basis in subsequent years, results were not published or underlying data disseminated. Eventually, CSA’s program of large- and medium-scale commercial farm surveys was suspended in 2005/06, just before investor interest in large-scale land-based investment peaked.

In 2007/08, such surveys were thus resumed, with a number of modifications, namely (i) use of a smaller number of more highly qualified field staff to gather information; (ii) a reduction of the sample size by only covering the universe of farms above a certain cut-off point (50 ha) and using a sample for commercial farms below this size; (iii) streamlining the survey instrument to focus on essential information first with the option of expanding as experience accumulates; (iv) collaboration with other agencies, in particular the Investment Agency, to ensure a sample frame; and (iv) area measurement by GPS to get a point of reference that makes it more difficult for respondents to intentionally provide mis-information. Still, when policy makers required information on the contribution of different types of commercial farm investment to the national economy and regulatory measure to maximize such impact, survey data proved insufficient to answer any questions beyond simple output estimates for national production statistics.

To remedy this, a technical cooperation with the World Bank’s research department was initiated starting with the 2013/14 survey focusing on two aspects. First, the questionnaire was expanded to include time and amount of original land receipt, basic data on labor use, investment, and markets, and perceived obstacles to further expansion. Second, efforts were made to link data over time and use the frame to obtain an

> 5 Information obtained included area and production of temporary and permanent crops; land use, i.e., total cropland area, fallow land, grazing land; agricultural practices, such as use of various inputs, quantity and cost of inputs used; number of livestock and poultry by type, purpose, age and sex; number of farm machineries used by type and market value of each; number of permanent and temporary employees by type of profession. 6 In principle, the most immediate candidate for a sample frame is the list of potential investors who either applied for or obtained an investment license. This would include those who proceeded to invest and those who did not, thus allowing to obtain information on obstacles encountered throughout the process. Unfortunately, although a list of more than 10,000 investors was available, it was not a viable strategy due to limited documentation gathered in the process and the fact that most of the phone numbers provided could not be reached.

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