Mr George Oduro, the Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, said this at a workshop for stakeholders aimed at enhancing the validation process. The framework, he said, would help know the number of farmers and their engagement in the different crop, fisheries and livestock productions.

He said researchers would be deployed to the district levels to collect data on agriculture activities.  He said the system would help the stakeholders to fully understand the situation and to measure the underlying factors to develop solutions that were evidence based.

He said the agriculture sector was a key driver of the economy, supporting the livelihood of more than 70 per cent of the rural population and contributing about 20 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  “It is instrumental in enhancing objective planning; for facilitating the production of accurate national accounts; and for monitoring the performance of interventions in the sector, such as the government’s Flagship Programme Planting for Food and Job,” he said.

Mr Francis Dzah, the representative of Ghana Statistical Service, noted that availability of reliable, comprehensive and timely agriculture data for monitoring and evaluating the performance of the sector was crucial.  “Reliable data is required to inform policy and decision-making.”

He said the Ghana Statistical Service would adequately train personnel at the district level to gather data and write reports to augment policy formulation.   The training would be enough to evaluate the National Agricultural Statistics System, identify problems and propose strategic objectives to implement strategy to achieve qualitative and quantitative change in agricultural statistics, he said.

Mr Christian Amedo, the Lead National Consultant of Strategic Plan for Agriculture and Rural Statistics said the sub sector working groups which would include forestry and logging, fisheries, crop and livestock personnel would identify weaknesses that exit in the generation of data in their outfit.

He said the strategy would provide a framework and methodology to improve the availability and quality of national and international agricultural and food statistics.