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NAIROBI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) — The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said on the 18th that it will provide funding and technical expertise to help African countries collect agricultural data, which is crucial to solving the food security crisis on the continent.
Gabriel Rugalema, FAO Representative in Kenya, said modern infrastructure for data collection and dissemination was needed to inform policy interventions on challenges facing African agriculture, including climate change, pests, diseases and soil nutrient loss.
“Governments and development partners must have accurate, timely and accessible data to inform responses to growing food insecurity on the continent in the context of rapid population growth and climate change,” Rugalema said.
He was speaking at a regional roundtable on the 2020 World Programme for the Census of Agriculture (WCA 2020) in Nairobi, attended by policymakers and experts from 20 English-speaking African countries.
The UN food agency organized a five-day forum to inform African policymakers and experts about the 2020 Agriculture Census, which aims to collect new data on the state of this critical sector.
Rugalema noted that African countries are keen to participate in the 2020 Census of Agriculture, which will reveal emerging challenges affecting the sector, such as deadly pests and diseases, climate-related shocks, pollution and urbanization.
He urged African governments to increase their capacity to conduct agricultural censuses through investments in personnel and new technologies.
“Given the impact that social and environmental changes are having on the performance of the agricultural sector, African countries must build their capacity to conduct timely and well-managed agricultural censuses,” Tugalema said.
He added that the 2020 Global Census of Agriculture will cover livestock, fisheries, gender and climate change.
Paul Ngoma Kimbassa, Director of the Statistics Division at FAO’s Regional Office for Africa, said accurate data on agriculture, forestry and fisheries will help the continent achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
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