Agricultural Issues
Afram Plains Farmers Quadruple Food Production
Barring any unforseen developments, the Afram Plains will soon give full meaning to its accolade of Ghana's major food basket. A tour of the two farming districts of Kwahu Afram Plains North and Kwahu Afrarm Plains South depicted that farmers there are now able to cultivate four times bigger acreages than they did previously, and their output per acre has more than quadrupled, thanks to such simple-but-effective technologies as irrigation pumps, improved seeds and animal breeds. [more]

Agric Ministry Urged to Develop Guideline for Selection of Project Beneficiaries
Government has been urged to pay attention to women in agriculture, who constitute majority of smallholder farmers, and provide them with the needed support. [more]

 Reports
Microfinance As a Poverty Alleviation Tool for Women in Ghana’s Informal Sector?
A Thesis Submitted to Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
This study aims to explore whether microfinance is an effective poverty alleviation tool for women in Ghana’s informal sector. The paper suggests that microfinance has made only limited progress as a poverty alleviation scheme for women in Ghana’s informal sector because despite moderate improvement in building assets and reducing vulnerabilities, microfinance clients have not been lifted out of poverty, but have instead progressed to a more modest form of poverty. [more]

The Emperor has no Data! Agricultural Statistics in Sub-Saharan Africa
Few people would contest the assertion that agricultural development is an essential engine of growth in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 75 percent of the extreme poor still reside in rural areas, and over 90 percent participate in agriculture. While the debate rages on how to best harness the still untapped potential of agriculture to reduce poverty in SSA, in this paper a more primordial, yet equally important, question is tackled: how much is really known about the state of agriculture in Africa and its contribution to the “wealth of the nations”? To that end, in this paper we describe a number of initiatives aimed at addressing the problem of quality of agricultural statistics in Africa and highlight selected work in the area of methodological research in agricultural data collection. [more]

 Thank you

The articles included in this news digest have been generated from online news sources and the daily graphic newspaper published within last week. For more information on any of these articles, please contact Adwoa Kwarteng at A.Kwarteng@cgiar.org
If you would like us to add your colleagues to our mailing list, please send their names and emails to us at IFPRI-Ghana@cgiar.org and we will be happy to do so. If you wish to no longer receive these updates, please reply to this email with “unsubscribe” in the subject line, and we will remove you from the mailing list.

 Agricultural Issues
FAO to Boost Poverty Reduction in Northern Ghana
The United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said here on Friday it was partnering the government of Ghana to use food production to reduce poverty in the three Northern Regions of the country. The initiative will focus on the value chain of cassava, a popular Ghanaian staple food, as an integrated approach to assist the government of Ghana for policy options to reduce poverty. [more]

Oil & Gas Sector Likely to Stunt Agricultural Growth
Dr Joe Taabazuing, Senior Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), has indicated that Ghana's fast growing oil and gas sector was likely to weaken the agricultural area if systematic sustainable steps were not taken. [more]

 Reports
Typology of Farm Households and Irrigation Systems: Some Evidence from Nigeria
IFPRI Discussion Paper 01267
Irrigation is considered an important factor for agriculture and food security. Knowledge gaps, however, still exist with regard to how farmers in Africa south of Sahara, including Nigeria, are using irrigation. This report summarizes the typology of farm  households and irrigators in Nigeria. [more]

Thank you

The articles included in this news digest have been generated from online news sources and the daily graphic newspaper published within last week. For more information on any of these articles, please contact Adwoa Kwarteng at A.Kwarteng@cgiar.org
If you would like us to add your colleagues to our mailing list, please send their names and emails to us at IFPRI-Ghana@cgiar.org and we will be happy to do so. If you wish to no longer receive these updates, please reply to this email with “unsubscribe” in the subject line, and we will remove you from the mailing list.

 Agricultural Issues
Ghana: Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Programme To Strengthen Skills And Competencies Of Ghanaian Agribusiness Professionals
Ghana needs a vibrant, thriving and growing agricultural sector to ensure food security, reduce poverty and develop its economy. Can improving the management practices in agribusinesses that provide the needed inputs and services for the sector and add value to its outputs vitalize the sector? The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) think so, and are partnering together to launch a four-week Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Programe, from April 15-May 10, 2013. [more]

Farm Chemicals International to Host Agriculture Summit
African agriculture, which is getting much-needed support from private investors and, in some countries, governments that recognize the value of empowering farmers to increase their productivity is set to come under the spotlight. A major summit is being held in South Africa next month which will discuss why productivity levels in Sub-Saharan Africa are among the lowest in the world and ways in which they can be increased. Farming production levels have been declining in Africa since the 1970s while the rest of the world has begun to see better yields by embracing hybrid seeds, fertilizers, crop protection products and other agriculture technologies. These technologies are now being deployed and adopted rapidly in Africa by governments, NGOs and private industry, and further optimism resides in the myriad development projects throughout the continent.[more]

Food Crisis/Security
Agric Ministry Roles Out Plans To Improve Food Security
Mr. Clement Humado, Minister for Food and Agriculture says the Ministry plans to modernize the agricultural sector to provide food security, increase employment opportunities and reduce poverty. Subsequently, Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) have been promoted as one of the avenues to achieve the goal. The Minister made this known to the Ghana News Agency after exchanging letters with the Australian High Commissioner for about one million Australian dollar support to the FBOs.  He noted that, FBOs provided opportunities for farmers to benefit from economies of scale, better bargaining power and a stronger voice in policy development. [more]

Reports
Links between Tenure Security and Food Security: Evidence from Ethiopia
Centre for Land Tenure Studies Working Paper 02/13
The study uses five rounds of household panel data from Tigray, Ethiopia, collected in the period 1998–2010 to assess the impacts of a land registration and certification program that aimed to strengthen tenure security and how it has contributed to increased food availability and thus food security in this food-deficit region. Results show that land certification appears to have contributed to enhanced calorie availability (calorie intake), and more so for female-headed households, either through enhanced land rental market participation or increased investment and productivity on owner-operated land. Results also show that members of households that accessed additional land through the land rental market had a significantly higher body mass index. Though results show that land rental market participation is enhancing production efficiency, high transaction costs in that market suggest there are still unrealized gains from trade. Thus, the recent restrictive regional land law that allows for only short-term rental contracts and does not allow more than 50 percent of land to be rented out may threaten future tenure security and may undermine the benefits from the existing tenure reform. [more]

The Impact of Irrigation on Nutrition, Health, and Gender: A Review Paper with Insights for Africa south of the Sahara
IFPRI Discussion Paper 01259,  April 2013
Agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) is still largely rainfed. SSA also exhibits the lowest crop yields for major staples in the world, largely due to low use of irrigation and fertilizer. Rainfed agriculture poses growing production risks with increased climate variability and change. At the same time, smallholder irrigation in the region developed rapidly over the past decade, albeit starting from very low levels. In addition to largely demand-driven irrigation development by smallholders, there is a significant push by donors for large-scale irrigation development, as well as some push for smallholder irrigation. The focus of this paper is on the health, nutrition, and gender linkage. To date, few studies have analyzed the impact of irrigation interventions on nutrition, health, and women’s empowerment, despite the large potential of irrigation to affect these important variables. Irrigation interventions may have differential effects on different members in the household and in the community, such as irrigators, non-irrigators, children, and women. Measuring and understanding such differences, followed by improving design and implementation to maximize gender, health, and nutrition outcomes, could transform irrigation programs from focusing solely on increased food production toward becoming an integral component of poverty-reduction strategies. [more]

Thank you

The articles included in this news digest have been generated from online news sources and the daily graphic newspaper published within last week. For more information on any of these articles, please contact Adwoa Kwarteng at A.Kwarteng@cgiar.org
If you would like us to add your colleagues to our mailing list, please send their names and emails to us at IFPRI-Ghana@cgiar.org and we will be happy to do so. If you wish to no longer receive these updates, please reply to this email with “unsubscribe” in the subject line, and we will remove you from the mailing list.