Stakeholders at the Liberia agricultural census meeting pose for group photo
By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
The Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo Information Services (LIGIS) has announced the 2022- 2023 agricultural census is due to be conducted shortly throughout the country.
The exercise will be done in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, LISGIS Acting Director General, Lawrence George has said.
He said the government-owned statistic entity will work with the Agriculture Ministry in order to develop comprehensive statistics in the agricultural sector.
Mr. George made the disclosure when he delivered the keynote speech marking the opening of a two-day meeting of stakeholders on Liberia 2022 2023 agricultural census stakeholders meeting held in Monrovia Wednesday, May 31, 2023.
According to him, LISGIS and the Agriculture Ministry along with partners have worked on ad-hoc basis in order to reduce the gap created in the absence of an accurate data.
“However, these ad-hoc surveys are usually limited in scope and do not provide an accurate data in the sector. To mitigate this challenge, the Liberian government in partnership with its development partners has resolved to conduct a holistic survey so as to develop a comprehensive data on the sector,” the LISGIS Acting Director explained.
In remarks, the National Project Coordinator at the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Emmanuel Kapee, said the FAO attaches importance to statistical information in undertaking projects in any community.
According to Mr. Kapee, the FAO is endeavoring to promote national agriculture census through a ten-year program for world agricultural census and capacity building initiatives.
“Since its creation,” Mr. Kapee went on, “FAO has endeavored to promote national agricultural census through its Ten-Year Programs for the World Census of Agriculture and its statistical capacity building programs.”
He explained that the agricultural census in Liberia is part of the implementation of the 2020 World Census of Agriculture Program recommended by the FAO which covers the period 2016-2025.
Mr. Kapee commended the initiative of multi-agency partnership (World Bank, FAO and IFAD) for data smart agriculture to strengthen national agricultural data systems in 50 countries by year 2030.”
For his part, the Officer in Charge of Planning and Development at the Ministry of Agriculture, J. Dennis Wiage said that many reports have shown that 60 percent of Liberia’s population rely on agriculture for survival
According to him, the relevant data to show how this sector is impacting the lives of the people was lacking for policy makers and technicians to take constructive decisions
The agricultural census meeting, which was sponsored by the Food and Agricultural Organization, the World Bank, the International Fund Agriculture Development, brought together representatives from line ministries, agencies and local and international agricultural organizations.