Agriculture Statistics vital for food security

Agriculture Statistics trainers have been urged to improve the quality of Agriculture Statistics indicators for food security in Africa. Addressing participants during the ongoing workshop, Statistician General Anna Majelantle said there are challenges regarding provision of quality statistics among others being challenges of expertise and skills in specific sector statistics.

She said African National Statistics Offices and Development partners continue to collaborate in the development and implementation of statistics frameworks to provide expertise and skills for the improvement of various sector statistics. “The training component of the Action Plan for Africa is currently being implemented by the African Centre for Statistics of the Economic Commission for Africa with the technical support from the African working group on statistical training and human resources,” she said.

The workshop is focused on training trainers on effective methods for production and use of Food Balance Sheets (FBs) for agricultural statistics. The workshop is attended by 19 African countries including Botswana, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sudan and Zambia.

Majelantle said the workshop forms part of the implementation of the Global Strategy for improving Agricultural and Rural Statistics which was designed to address the declining capacity of many statistical systems in developing countries. “We expect the workshop to result with better understanding of the requirements for producing and using FBs to enhance statistics on agriculture and to improve the physical scope of official statistics by mainstreaming agricultural statistics within the national statistical systems in Africa,” said Majelantle.

The Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics was established and endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2010. Its objective was to provide a framework that will help improve the availability and quality of statistics on agriculture and food security in the world.Majelantle explained that the Action Plan for Africa has been prepared jointly by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).