Namibia’s planning around food security and investment in agriculture has been based on statistics gathered 20 years ago, a dangerous situation that Statistician-General John Steytler hopes would be reversed by the agriculture census that he launched at Rundu on Monday.
Since the last census, several developments have taken place around the issue of land in the country, and such information is not included in documents produced two decades ago.
This, Steytler said, includes game farming – a relatively new concept whose activities occupies large tracts of land.
Under his stewardship, the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) has produced regular statistical updates in various sectors – and agriculture, which forms the backbone of the country’s livelihood, is the latest area the agency has tackled.
Steytler is hopeful that the figures the NSA is supplying to different government and non-governmental institutions will help stimulate better planning.
On Monday, Steytler took to the field to witness how dozens of enumerators allocated to the two Kavango regions would tackle an exercise that will keep the NSA busy for almost the whole of 2014.
Calling it a “national call for duty”, Steytler said the census is designed to produce precise agricultural information, which he says was long overdue.
“Government has been using outdated statistics for modern-day planning, which could pose threats for wrongful planning,” Steytler said.
“This exercise would also help with planning the country’s food security.”
Agreeing with Steytler on the importance of this census to government’s planning is the Director-General of the Namibian Planning Commission (NPC), Tom Alweendo.
He said: “Without data, our decisions are likely to become a failure. Food security cannot be adequately addressed until the country has data on agriculture.”
Alweendo urged the nearly 500 enumerators who will cover all 14 regions of the country to strive for accuracy of the information they gather.
“Accuracy is one area that all enumerators must strictly comply with.”
Steytler urged farmers, both commercial and subsistence, to give their full cooperation to enumerators.
RUNDU STAFF REPORTER
Category: