CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA)–The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said it will utilize modern technologies, including artificial intelligence in its latest Census of Agriculture and Fisheries (CAF).
PSA-10 Officer-in-Charge Janith Aves said this would be the first census that PSA will be using computer-aided personal interviews (CAPI) to improve productivity and efficiency.
“This will be the first census in the country to utilize tablets nationwide for recording the responses of our interviews. This cutting-edge approach will not only ensure accuracy but also expedite the processing of the census results paving the way for quicker access to crucial data,” she said during the press launch of the 2022 CAF, September 1.
Aside from the use of tablets, Aves said they also employed other innovations that include earth observation and remote sensing data, and other developed algorithms, marking another first for PSA.
According to her, PSA and the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ASTI) had earlier inked an agreement for the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence for Census of Agriculture and Fisheries (AI4CAF) Project.
“This is a joint project that covers object detection, mapping, and crop area estimation of selected major crops and aquafarms in the country using the remote sensing artificial intelligence and earth observation data,” she said.
Noting the beneficial impact of utilizing remote sensing data coupled with artificial intelligence algorithms, Aves underscored that the insights that will be derived from remote sensing will not only facilitate the saturation of areas but also serve to refine the results of census interviews.
“This will also help us in validating the results of the census in terms of area,” she added.
The PSA-10 officer-in-charge further stated that the use of AI will help them in terms of detecting and estimating the areas for crop farms and aquafarms which can also be used in the development of statistical frames for agricultural and aquaculture surveys
The CAF is a large-scale government undertaking geared towards the collection and compilation of basic information on the agricultural and fishery sectors in the country.
The 2022 CAF is the seventh in a series of decennial agricultural census and the sixth in a series of decennial census on fisheries in the country since 1903.
Its data gathering runs from September 4 to October 25, 2023. The preliminary results will be released on March 29, 2024, while the final results will be released on a staggered basis starting July 2024. (APB/PIA-10)
