Tamale, March 27, - The
Government has begun processes to conduct a Census of Agriculture, to produce
and disseminate complete and reliable data for decision making and for
monitoring programmes aimed at further developing the agricultural sector and
the economy.
The Census of Agriculture is a
nationwide exercise that collects, processes and disseminates information on
the structure of agriculture, geography, socio-economic conditions,
infrastructure, and availability of agricultural and social services in
agricultural communities, and potentials and constraints for development in
those communities.
The exercise, planned for 2016 to
2019, is a collaborative effort between the Ghana Statistical Service and the
Ministry of Food and Agriculture with technical support from the Food and
Agriculture Organization.
To this end, a training of
trainers’ workshop was held concurrently across the country to equip
participants with the requisite knowledge that would enable them to effectively
train field personnel for the data collection exercise.
The training of field personnel
will be held from April 03 to April 12.
Mr Salifu Saeed, Northern
Regional Minister, who read a speech on behalf of the Minister of Food and
Agriculture during the closing of the nine-day Northern Regional training of
trainers’ workshop in Tamale on Monday, said reliable agriculture statistics
would be generated for the purposes of planning, monitoring food and security
and livelihood requirement.
Mr Saeed said the Census of
Agriculture would provide current information on the structure of agriculture
in the country, which was vital to the rebasing of the country’s gross domestic
product, given that the last Census of Agriculture was conducted in 1985.
He said “It will provide
statistics on agriculture for policy makers to allocate public resources
effectively and to better identify, prepare, implement and evaluate
developmental projects aimed at promoting agriculture in the rural areas”.
The main data collection for the
census will be preceded by a listing exercise during which trained field
personnel will visit all households and institutions to assign numbers to all
structures and identify all households.
This will be followed by the
actual data collection exercise where enumerators will visit all households and
institutions engaged in the production of any type of food crop, livestock,
aquaculture in both inland and offshore waters, as well as any type of tree
planting activity, and enumerate them.
Mr Saeed urged all respondents to
cooperate fully with the field officers by providing all required data to
ensure success of the exercise.
He appealed to chiefs, religious
and opinion leaders to assist in the publicity campaign for the exercise.
GNA
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