All is set for the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) to update data on the agriculture sector through a new census which comes after some 33 years when the last one was conducted.
The GSS will be working together with the Agric Ministry, with support from the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
The agricultural census is to produce and disseminate comprehensive and reliable agricultural data that will meet the needs of the wide range of data users, including policy makers, researchers and national development partners.
The data is expected to enhance evidence-based decision-making and policy formulation as well as help monitor government’s agricultural programmes.
It will also serve as a barometer to measure the country’s progress towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that relate to food and agriculture.
The last time Ghana conducted agricultural census was around 1984/1985. Conventionally, agricultural census should have been done every ten years, but government’s excuse has been about logistical constraints.
Policy formulators and other agricultural data users have since been feeding on ‘out-of-date’ database.
To prepare the grounds for the census, a training of trainers’ workshop has been held across the ten regions. The regional trainees are expected to facilitate training of census field officers, beginning April 3, 2018.
For the Brong Ahafo Region, 63 people, made up of GSS, MoFA and District Assembly officials were trained in Sunyani.
At the closing session of the workshop, MoFA’s Director of Statistics Research and Information Directorate George Harrison Opoku, underscored the importance of a credible agricultural database for planning.
He prayed the general public for their “active cooperation” with the field personnel who will be deployed to collect data from every household and institution.
