The Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ghana Statistical Service have begun a workshop to equip participants with requisite knowledge that will enable them to effectively train field personnel for a data collection exercise.

Speaking on behalf of the Minister of Agric in Cape Coast, Papa Kow Bartels, explained the exercise is expected to provide current information on the structure of agriculture in the country.

The data collection exercise is seen as vital to the rebasing of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product given that the last census of agriculture was conducted in 1985.

Papa Kow Bartels further explains that the statistics on agriculture will enable policymakers to allocate public resources effectively and to better identify, prepare, implement and evaluate developmental projects aimed at promoting the sector in the rural areas.

“We need to address environmental issues at the community level and provide relevant information for use by stakeholders including farmers themselves, researchers, students, international organizations and other organizations,” he said.

The data collection for the census is expected to be preceded by a listing exercise during which trained field personnel would visit all households and institutions to assign numbers to all structures and identify all households for the actual data exercise.

The Minister appealed to chiefs, religious and other opinion leaders, to assist in the publicity campaign for the census.

The Census of Agriculture is supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.