Ghana plans $20m agricultural census in 2015

Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) few months ago and on behalf of government signed a Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to look for donors to sponsor the implementation of a $20m agricultural census within the next three years, Kofi Humado, Minister of Food and Agriculture told Spy Ghana on 24 January.
Ghana?s unavailability of agricultural census has been blamed on lack of funds.
“One thing that has eluded us over the past 20 years has been agricultural census. This has introduced a gap in the presentation of agricultural data in Ghana,” Humado bemoaned.
Speaking at the reflection on Agriculture Data and Information Systems in the country programme in Accra, Philomena Nyarko, Government Statistician, revealed that, the census which is scheduled to officially commence in February 2015 when funds are made available, will be conducted in four phases.
?The first phase involves setting up institutional structures which include the national bureau of census, the technical committees; the steering committees who will manage the conduct of the census.?
We are then expecting some consultants to come and work with us on the manual and the methodology. Hopefully by February they will be here. The census spans from 2013 and 2017, according to Nyarko.
The purpose of the project is to provide the average income of the agricultural workforce, the percentage of the national budget of agriculture and the input costs of agricultural production, plan and monitor the country?s agriculture programmes, Nyarko added.
The agriculture minister took the opportunity to officially launch the SRID websites portal sridagristat.gov.gh which is expected to help improve agricultural statistics for policy makers and improve its legal frameworks as well.
Story by Makafui Delalie