The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) through the help of Federal Government and the support of the World Bank as well as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is set to conduct the National Agricultural Sample Census and the National Agricultural Sample Survey.
Ohioma Bishop, an Assistant Director, Head, Agric Statistic Division at the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), while addressing journalists disclosed that the census is supposed to be conducted every 10 years but it has not been conducted since last 29 years, while survey was supposed to be every year but it has not been done for the past seven to eight years.
The census is a complete enumeration of all agricultural activities within the country, the last round of the census was carried out in 1993/94, while several attempts that have been made to conduct another census after the last one have been fruitless.
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The exercise will at the end positively affect the nation’s food security by providing data for policy making through the enumeration of all agricultural activities in the country, including crop production, fisheries, forestry and livestock.
Ohioma explained that NBS is the acting agent, while the World Bank and FAO are the technical supporting teams, adding that they are also collaborating with the federal ministry of agriculture as well as National Population Commission (NPC).
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He pointed out that the exercise is going to cover all the 774 local government areas in Nigeria, adding that the agency has conducted a sensitization workshop, while hoping to commence training of trainers in June.
“The census will last for about 60 days after we are going to select farmers again, which is to look at the crop production in Nigeria and that is the second component of the census which we call the National Agricultural Sample Survey.
