Hon. Salifu Saeed with Agric Census Regional Management Team members
The Northern Regional Minister Salifu Sa-eed has inaugurated the Agric Census Regional Management team in the Northern Region on behalf of the Minister for Agriculture, Owusu Afriyie Akoto.
The Ghana Census of Agriculture (GCA) has a steering committee (the apex body), which would oversee and direct its activities.
It also has the government statistician as the project director for the agric census, who would be assisted by two deputies- the Deputy Government Statistician and Director of the Statistics, Research and Information at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
The Ministry, in collaboration with the Ghana Statistical Service, has commenced the collection of agricultural data from households and institutions operating in agric sector.
The data would inform policymakers in the disbursement of resources to promote agriculture in the rural areas.
The exercise is expected to be carried out across all the districts of the country and would have identified persons collect data from various households and institutions, especially those engaged in crops and animal production.
Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, in a speech read on his behalf by the Northern Regional Minister, said the census, when completed, will provide reliable statistics for planning and monitoring of food security and livelihood improvements.
Data captured under the census would be on land tenure, human capital, technology, equipment, skills and weather patterns in the rural sectors and agricultural structures.
The programme, which is expected to end this year, is to coordinate and monitor agricultural projects in the region.
The data to be collected under the programme would provide current information on the structure of agriculture in the country, which is vital to the rebasing of Ghana’s economy.
Mr Salifu Sa-eed urged all stakeholders in the agricultural sector to support government to gather accurate data that would promote agriculture growth and food security in Ghana as part of efforts to make Ghana the bread basket of West Africa.
The last time a census on agriculture was conducted in Ghana was in 1985.
Government’s quest to hold another agric census forms part of the Akufo-Addo government’s vision of making agriculture the backbone of the country’s economy.
From Eric Kombat, Tamale