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Agriculture remains the mainstay of the Ghanaian economy and in pursuant of this the government is bracing up to meet challenges in the sector in order to move it even further. Under the circumstances, the government and its international development partners plan to spend more than GH�51 million in the last quarter of this year on the conduct of a census in agriculture. To this is end, there is going to be a census dubbed Ghana Census for Agriculture (GCA), expected to provide accurate information about the current state of agriculture in the country. The World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) are providing support for the programme. The GCA is also expected to provide accurate data on crop and livestock production, crop yield and prices. Following the census, policy makers and investors would be provided with more concise and up-to-date information with regard to the agricultural sector in order to identify, prepare, implement and evaluate developmental activities, as well as estimate proceeds from agriculture on a sound basis. The ministry The census will be carried out by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) with technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Emphasis will be on crops, livestock, fishery and forestry products. The Director of Survey Organisation and Census of the GSS, Mr Anthony Amuzu, who spoke at an event held in Takoradi to inaugurate the Western Regional Management Team of the GCA, said the modular approach that was recommended by the FAO for the 2010 round of the World Census for Agriculture would be used. Mr Amuzu noted that the modular approach methodology would broadly improve the processes of collecting agricultural information. He said the programme of activities on the census would be carried out in four phases. The first phase, he said, would relate to data collection, processing, analysing and dissemination. He added that a pilot on the census would be carried out between July 6 and 31, 2014, after which the programme itself would begin from October 1 to December 31. He said the results of the three-month long census would be disseminated between March and December 2017 when results of the thematic modules and technical reports on all the other modules would have been prepared. Public support In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Assistant Director of Statistics, Research and Information of MOFA, Mr Godsway Banini, called on members of the public to give the exercise their support even as government took steps to improve upon the agricultural sector, identified as a key avenue for poverty alleviation. He said the data that would be gathered would help both the government and the private sector to make informed decisions that would help develop the agricultural sector which had been the backbone of the country�s economy for decades.