05/03/2025
Through the European EUCAN project, the main objective was to highlight the importance of the agricultural census.
The European EUCAN project organised a regional workshop in St. Lucia on the production, dissemination and use of agricultural and fisheries data. The activity focused on sharing the status of the agricultural and fisheries census in each of the six member states of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS): Antigua and Barbuda, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
The aim of the workshop is to share the status of the agricultural and fisheries census in each of six OECS Member States: Antigua and Barbuda, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
The aim of this workshop was to demonstrate the value of an agricultural census as a decision-making tool. It contributes to areas such as agricultural planning, which helps in the definition of policies on food security or gender issues and promotes agricultural production, investments, economic growth, rural development, etc. The agricultural census also influences research, investment and business decisions by providing fundamental data on the past and future composition and distribution of growth in the sector. In addition, it contributes to the monitoring of environmental changes and provides data on the use of environmentally friendly practices.
Obtaining reliable data and statistics is a priority for the OECS Commission. Therefore, it has sought to improve the countries’ knowledge on the digital transformation of the rural environment, to help them identify appropriate systems for the collection and analysis of reliable data. In this way, the OECS Commission will obtain quantitative information to measure the progress of the implementation and impact of the OECS Food and Agricultural Systems Transformation Strategy (FAST) 2022 to 2032.
Representatives of the Ministries of Agriculture and the national statistics offices engage in practical sessions with the OECS Commission, FAO and the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that will showcase European level practices and examples for producing, disseminating and using agriculture data.
As an outcome of the three days of work, it was identified to outline a roadmap with the following elements and desired results to improve the national and regional agricultural statistics system:
