National Capabilities, Challenges and data requirements towards meeting food Security in Ghana 2017 AfriGEOSS Symposium Tyco City Hotel, Sunyani-Brong Ahafo June 13-15, 2017 Godsway k. Banini Deputy Director, SRID-MoFA June 14, 2017, Sunyani

Presentation Outline Introduction National Capabilities Organisation of Agricultural Statistics in Ghana Overview of Agricultural Survey System in Ghana Status of Agricultural Survey Data Collection System in Ghana Data Requirements Challenges New Technologies to Explore What need to be done

Introduction Agricultural development is vital to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), especially those related to poverty and food security and to environment sustainability The need to measure agricultural performance and the returns of agricultural investment has become an increasing pressing priority A wide range of important policy issues depends on good quality agricultural data However, there is lack of sound basis for deciding direction of agricultural development, monitoring crop conditions for advance decision making for imports/exports, food security policy formulation and evaluation of developmental programmes

National Capabilities National capabilities linked to the 4 dimensions of food security Availability Accessibility Stability Utilisation

National Capabilities –cont’d Availability – domestic production, imports and exports Accessibility – distribution (road networks, storage facilities), price /affordability Stability- all year round food availability through own production, imports, strategic reserve, value addition Utilization – nutrition

Organisation of Agricultural Statistics in Ghana Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) Census of Agriculture Statistics Research and Information Directorate (SRID) Annual Sample Surveys of Agriculture (crops and livestock) Agricultural Market information(weekly/monthly)

Overview of Agricultural Survey System in Ghana Two (2) systems for collection agricultural data/information Reporting System (administrative statistics) Sample Survey System Sampling Method used is the List Frame Sampling (LFS) The LFS method also involves 1. Interview method and 2. Actual measurement (cropped area and crop cutting)

Overview of Agricultural Survey System in Ghana (cont’d) Four (4) Field Survey Operations under LFS Method Creation of sampling frame and selection of sample households Interview of sample households Area measurement – (by actual field measurement) Yield measurement – (by crop cutting)

Status of Agricultural Survey Data Collection System in Ghana Agricultural Extension Agents (AEAs) undertake both agric. Extension and data collection Data collection is carried out at Enumeration Area (EA) level and collated at district level District level data is collated at Regional level Regional offices submit to national office regional data

Data Requirements Weather forecasts Crop Forecasts – early warning on crop development, pest and disease infestation Water levels in major dams and rivers

Challenges Duplicated efforts in data collection – conflicting figures Declining resource allocation to agricultural statistics Lack of up-to-date list frame – the last Census of Agric. was conducted in 1984/85; developing list frames under Agric. surveys expensive General low appreciation of the importance of quality data at various levels Inadequate staffing especially at field level Low adoption and use of modern technology for agric data collection Poor -post harvest handling, road network affecting food availability and affordability Poor warehousing/storage facility Lack of standards and weights in commodity marketing Lack of well organised marketing structures for livestock

New Techniques to Explore GIS CAPI Earth observation data e.g. Monitoring for Environment and Security for Africa (MESA) Dot Sampling for crop area determination and yield estimation SARAAH-H model for crop monitoring

What need to be done Given the emerging data needs (impact of agric on environment), investment in agriculture; biofuel; water and land use, climate change, there is the need for new conceptual framework – i.e. adoption and use of modern technology for agricultural data collection

Thank you