Agricultural Census, 2011-2012

Since the 1990s the Government of the Gambia has been committed to sustainable human development and improved living standards of the people of the country, During this period, the Government has established a number of strategies and approaches to achieve these overarching objectives, including: a Vision 2020, Millennium Development Goals, Poverty Reduction Strategies, and very recently a Programme for Accelerated Growth and Employment. Each of these strategies recognized the major roles and contributions of the Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) Sector in achieving their respective objectives. Although the sector made impressive growth performances during the past two decades, there were indications more could be achieved from it, especially because of the increasing demands being placed on it to meet changing circumstances in the global economy, from climate change occurrences the national macro-economic environment.

The long-term objectives of The Gambia Census of Agriculture 20011/12 were:
a. Improvement of the capacity and capability in the to implement an agriculture census and thereby provide agricultural statistical data within the overall integrated agricultural statistical system;
b. Provision of national agricultural statistical indicators for assessing and monitoring of the implementation of agricultural development programmes and interventions;
c. Monitoring progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs);
d. Poverty alleviation

The more specific objectives were:
a. Establishment of a viable sampling frames for agricultural surveys and censuses;
b. Development and implementation of a national programme for an agricultural census and an annual crop and livestock surveys to collect Food and Agricultural statistics;
c. Improvement of skills and knowledge of field staff in agricultural statistical data collection and compilation techniques and thereby develop the capability for undertaking agricultural censuses and surveys as well as compile relevant indicators;
d. Collection and accumulation of annual agricultural statistics;
e. Establishment of an agricultural data bank;
f. To provide data on the structure of agriculture, especially for small administrative units, and to enable detailed cross tabulations and
g. To provide data to use as benchmarks for current agricultural statistics