The National Agricultural Register (Renagro), which was supposed to start operating on the continent this Wednesday, February 15, was suspended due to the resignation of the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), Bernardo Manzano, on Tuesday, February 14, in the afternoon. .

The State Portfolio scheduled for this Wednesday in Quito the signing of the contract with the French Development Agency (AFD) for the delivery of $30 million to finance Renagro Continental in 2023, but that event was also canceled. This continental phase was to begin after the pilot phase in the Galapagos that lasted from August to September 2022, MAG announced.

2,000 interviewers were expected to visit the 23 provinces of mainland Ecuador in this new phase.

Meanwhile, in the Galapagos, the registry, which has not been carried out for 23 years, revealed that 33% of the island’s population is dedicated to agricultural production and that 85% of producers own their land. In the archipelago, 1,117 producers were examined and 21,228 hectares of land were monitored.

“The national agricultural register is very important because it has not been done for 23 years as a kind of census of agriculture, we know exactly how many there are, how we work, what we have, what our strengths, weaknesses and opportunities are, with this information we will be able to classify and make a better public policy more precisely,” Manzano explained this Tuesday, before his resignation, in an interview with a radio medium, where he revealed that the Agricultural Policy Observatory is being developed in parallel with Renagra.

30 million dollars will cost the agricultural census, which will be carried out until 2024

In 2000, the III State Census of Agriculture was conducted at the national level, which included a questionnaire of 110 questions applied to 162,818 agricultural production units.

In this new opportunity, brigade members will approach production units (farms or land) at the national level, to collect data on crop types, irrigation, environmental issues, employment and peasant family farming.