The census for agriculture is scheduled to take place between the 2025 and 2026 agricultural seasons.

Gaps and scattered data in the agriculture sector have prompted the appropriate development of statistical strategies.

Stakeholders are attending a workshop on the Strategic Plan for Agriculture and Rural Statistics (SPARS) and the Development of Namibia Census of Agriculture Project Document.

They reiterated the importance of an agricultural census as a key building block for providing the framework necessary to develop agriculture surveys and benchmark results.

The Development of SPARS comes at an appropriate time as Namibia embarks on its next Population and Housing Census.

The census will help identify Namibian households involved in agriculture.

The plan is expanded to include fisheries and forestry statistics.

The Statistician General of the Namibia Statistics Agency, Alex Shimwafeni, says the sectors contributed about 8.4% of the national GDP over the last five years.

"Agriculture, forestry, and fishing are the backbone of the country's economy as they provide food security and livelihoods and contribute to overall economic growth. On average, this sector has contributed about 8.4% GDP in the last five years.

The development of a Strategic Plan is led by the Namibia Statistics Agency, with technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.