German Government donates to MOFA

December 10, 2010 Accra, Dec. 10, GNA - The German Government on Friday donated 182 computers and accessories worth 150,000 Euros to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to help in the retrieval of data and statistical information on agriculture in the country.

    
Mr Eberhard Schanze, German Ambassador to Ghana, presenting the items, said agriculture was important to every developing country and the facility provided would help the expansion of data and information in the agricultural sector.

    
He said to achieve success in the fight against poverty, there must be strong facilities to help farmers in their data collection, obtaining resources and achieve better communication among partners.

    
Mr Shanze noted that there was the need to have solid information systems which would help in communication, compiling of data in other districts through e-mails to reduce the cost of sending messages. 

    
Mr Yaw Effah-Baafi, Deputy Minister of MOFA in-charge of Crops, receiving the items, said the Ministry depended on data and statistics to improve on its performance and the accessories would facilitate data collection and storage.

    
He said the most important information to be applied in farming included the registration of farm-based-organizations and facilities provided it would be ideal to register individual farmers in their operations, location and communities where they were engaged.

    
Mr Effah-Baafi explained that there were 170 Metropolis, Municipalities and Districts and each would have a computer and accessories, with the remaining two kept at the Ministry.

    
He urged the workers and staff to use the computers to generate statistics and appealed to them to handle the facilities with care to serve the purpose for which they had been provided.

    
Mr Asante Krobea, Brong Ahafo Regional Director of Agriculture, said challenges at the regional and district levels were information capturing, documentation, analysis and retrieval of secondary data on their activities, as most of their data management was done manually.

    
He noted that this affected the quality of reports from the Regions and Districts, thereby distorting information outlay in the Ministry.

     
Mr Krobea said provision of the computers and accessories would enhance data capturing, documentation, analysis and presentation.

     
He gave the assurance that they would use and maintain the facilities to the best of their ability to improve agricultural planning and service delivery to the advantage of farmers and the nation.

GNA