Small area estimation of agricultural data

Improving social inclusion and life conditions is the object of many international project (“InGRID-2: supporting expertise in inclusive growth”, “MAKSWELL: Making Sustainable development and WELL-being frameworks works for policy analysis”). In the evidence-based policy making to combat poverty, agricultural data assume a key role. In fact, mainly in developing countries, it is out of doubt that monitoring agricultural indicators at local level allows for an appropriate policy intervention. In general, local/small area level is the geographical level to which data are requested in order to planning sub-regional policies and/or evaluate the results of policy. At a local/small area level direct estimates of agricultural and rural statistics are not accurate because sample surveys are usually designed so that direct estimators lead to reliable estimates only for larger domains (states, regions).