Logbook for Kudakwashe Zvanyanya

Zimbabwe national statistics agency (zimstat)

Agriculture section
Student statistical clerk
Sub-section large scale and A2 farms
Week Activities carried out
1 Introduced to almost every section of the agency
Shown and taught the main activities of the section
Sorting questionnaires according to province district and farm number
Arranging questionnaires in ascending order
2 begun editing and coding questionnaires of record type 3&4 which concerns
livestock changes at the farm
Classification of animals into heifers oxen cows in milk and other classifications.
Comparing the cattle composition of the yester year and those of present year
Note changes in stock of the yester to the present year.
Cattle population being our main objective so the questionnaire is designed to
provide the relevant information.
3 the whole unit moved to record type 9 which is building and infrastructure.
This module shows the changes in fixed assets in the whole year and how they came
about.
The main mistakes had to do with mathematical error and classification of the assets
and or tools.
Also the geo- code that is the exact location of the farm.
After editing, the questionnaires are to be sorted back to their respective places.
4 continued editing record type 9 but this time I was in the A1 farms.
A1 farms were a bit simpler as compared to the A2 farms, A2 farms are more
complicated because of their infrastructure they build.
The main difficulty we all faced as a group was that of inconsistency in questionnaire
design.
Shown how to estimate for the schemes that were not provisioned for. That is those
that were not captured by the enumerator.
Estimation was under the supervision of the officers.
Prepared the hides and skins questionnaire but it was mainly a draft since the final
or the original one is to be compiled by the supervisors
5. We moved to a new record type
Record type 1(employment module)on this one we centre on the employees being
paid by the farm owner whether in currency or in any form of payment.
We only centre on those that are paid, relatives and children are regarded as mere
dependants to the farm owner even if they are being paid
We want to ascertain those who earn a living from working at the farm, thus we do
not include individuals who are not involved in the day to day activities at the farm.
As a group we faced a couple of problems for example relative that reside at the
farm and receive some form of payment, where exactly are they supposed to be
placed. are they mere dependants or we are going to treat them as workers if so
why?
For workers who were paid in nonmonetary terms, we also had conversion
problems.
To those who were paid in grain, converting the values from grain to currency could
increase the possibility of error since prices differ from province to province.
6 moved to editing record 9(building and machinery module)
We also had to take account of the improvements done by the farmer eg barns built,
tobacco curing houses.
Started preparing my preliminary report
7 I was entering data; although I was told it was not part of my core duties because of
staff shortages we were to do some of the data entry.
The system we used is called CS Pro which was developed at zimstat
Data entry uses only figures we do not enter any form language that is we do not
enter comments by the enumerator.
Prepared reports to be showcased at the Harare agricultural and business show, also
took the items to be used to the show grounds.
Was grunted a single day to attend the national event that is the Harare agricultural
and business show.
8 the whole section moved to correcting errors (data cleaning)
This is the vital period in the section where we look at:
Data entry mistakes like punching a 3 instead of a 5
Duplication of serial number or information on farms
Mathematical errors that were left out in the editing and cording phase.
Misplacement of questionnaires eg an A1 farm that would have been placed in the
A2
Assumptions played a major role in this phase eg an individual may state that he
bought single beast for 5000 us dollars which is unrealistic .so we would have to
assume that he was referring to South African rands.
9 we have moved to try and clear backlogs
So we moved out data starting from 2003 to 2009 which had not been processed.
Started with the record type 3 that is cattle population.
Though our main concern is the cattle composition we also look at other livestock
populations for example rabbits, sheep, goat chickens and bees.
10 moved back to errors but now we are attending to problems of serial numbers
duplication and missing serial numbers.
Whilst the officers are preparing the tabulations for final reports we assisted by
pulling out the relevant questionnaires for them.