WINDHOEK – The Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) launched the countrywide agriculture census in Rundu in the Kavango East Region on Monday.
The census will take place throughout Namibia, and will be carried out as per the World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2019. “The information which will be obtained from the agricultural census will provide the only source of uniform, comprehensive and impartial agricultural data for every region in Namibia. Through the census, producers will demonstrate to the nation the value and importance of agriculture,” said the Director-General of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Tom Alweendo. “This will also allow them to have a say and influence the decisions that will shape the future of Namibia’s agricultural sector for years to come,” Alweendo said.
In order to plan, implement, monitor as well as evaluate sound agricultural development policies and programmes, timely, accurate and reliable agricultural statistical data is needed. Planning requires two kinds of agricultural statistics namely production statistics and structural agricultural statistics. “In life we don’t make important decisions without knowing all the facts, then this should certainly not happen when making economic, agricultural and social policy. Especially not on information or data that is sometimes 20 years old,” Alweendo explained.
The census will collect country-wide data that provide an integrated picture of the agricultural structure of the nation. The census is also expected to provide information on the characteristics of land holdings, the structure of agriculture and the social, economic, institutional factors influencing and limiting production. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) highlighted the positive role sustainable food systems can play in the fight against hunger. Every day, 840 million people go hungry worldwide, according to FAO.
“We need to produce nutritious food for all people today, while also protecting the capacity of future generations to feed themselves,” said Helena Semedo, Deputy Director-General of FAO. Not too long ago the Minister of Agriculture, John Mutorwa was quoted saying: “We need to know where we stand as a nation. What is the status of our food security? We can’t make decisions without knowing this. How do we combat our natural challenges and plan for a future where none of us have to worry about food? Not just about where our next meal is coming from, but where next month’s meal is coming from.”
Nearly 500 enumerators have been equipped with all the necessary tools and transportation to go out and conduct the census. Some of the challenges facing field operatives, include the many languages they will encounter, as well as getting to respondents in remote areas, but they have been well trained for the exercise according to officials of the NSA. That is why enumerators that speak various local vernaculars and dialects have been recruited to work in specific areas. “Just because a respondent is not in an easily accessible place, does not mean their opinion and the data doesn’t matter,” the Statistician-General Dr John Steytler emphasized.
“We need to help you where we can. This census is a major step in helping you. Therefore we urge you to help us by answering as fully and truthfully as possible and provide all possible assistance to the enumerators,” he appealed. “Agriculture is the lifeblood of Namibia, it’s in our bones, in our dreams and what’s more, farming is also our reality. It is because of the unique way in which we farm as a nation, relying on the hard work, sweat and toil of the communal farmers that Namibia has food.
It doesn’t matter what Mother Earth throws at us, the communal farmer continues to raise his or her cattle or tends his or her plot of land. Feeding families or selling the harvest in the village, town or even to the larger companies. You, as the farmers, have taken up the responsibility, sometimes for generations to feed Namibia. We need to help you where we can. This census is a major step in helping you.”
“The census will take place in each of the 14 regions and these regions together form the true foundation and backbone of all that is Namibia and Namibian. That is especially true of agriculture, one of the essential pillars of Namibian society and certainly of its economy,” Dr Steytler reiterated.
By John Muyamba