Agricultural Issues
Mobile Phones Link Ghana Cocoa Farmers
Australian Food
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), The Hershey Company, and the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) have announced a first-of-its kind program to use mobile technology to deliver practical information on agricultural and social programs to rural cocoa farmers, and enable the farmers to ask questions and provide feedback.
The program, called “CocoaLink - Connecting Cocoa Communities,” will make use of Ghana’s rapidly developing mobile phone infrastructure and build on the existing successful WCF education and literacy programs to reach more than 8,000 Ghanaian cocoa farmers and community members in 15 pilot communities in the important cocoa-growing regions of Western Ghana.
Government Committed to Efficiency of Cocoa Sector
Ghana News Agency
Government has reiterated its commitment to continue pursuing policies that would make the cocoa industry more efficient, despite the discovery of oil in the country.
Mr. Fiifi Kwetey, Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, who gave the assurance on Thursday, said even though Ghana has started oil production, government believed that Agriculture, especially the hold on the cocoa sub-sector, would remain key to the rural transformation of the economy.
Ghana Government Keen on Raising Rice Production
Ghana Business News
Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, Minister of Food and Agriculture, has said the government was committed to developing the rice industry into a major income earner to contribute to rural poverty reduction.
He, therefore, appealed for investments, particularly in mechanization services, for harvesting and milling, which are big challenges to the growth of the sector.
How Mobile Phones Are Transforming African Agriculture
How we made it in Africa
Mobile phone technologies are presenting Africa’s smallholder farmers with an unprecedented opportunity to run their operations more productively and to grow their own income levels.
Private companies, budding IT entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as governments are all involved in a variety of mobile phone-based products, services and applications (small software programs that users can access on their handsets) aimed at boosting small-scale agriculture.
AGRA Soil Health Project Takes-Off in Northern Ghana
Ghana Business News
The Soil Health Project of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which is aimed at boosting maize-based cropping system productivity in Northern Ghana through widespread adoption of Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM), has taken off.
The project has the objective of increasing agricultural production and alleviating rural poverty through strengthening partnerships and capacity of Farmer-based Organizations (FBOs) and other players in the agricultural sector to promote integrated soil fertility management.
Food Crisis/Security
“Feed the Future” Initiative to Fight Poverty, Hunger in Ghana
Ghana
The Government of the United States of America (U.S.A.), through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has embarked on a programme aimed at helping poor countries fight hunger by investing in agricultural development.
The programme, dubbed “Feed the Future Initiative", usually innovation, research and development to improve agricultural productivity, link farmers to local and regional markets, enhance nutrition and build safety nets.
Under the initiative, the U.S.A. works through multi-lateral and bi-lateral fora with stakeholders from civil society, the private sector and governments, and support country-led initiatives.
Global Food Crisis Hits Ghana?
GhanaWeb
A recent report by Esoko about the increase in cereal prices in Ghana may very well be an indication that the global food crisis is starting to have an effect on the lives of Ghanaians.
The report indicated increases in prices of 10 out of 12 commodities in seven markets covered by Esoko Market Watchers for the week ended 11 March 2011.
The Esoko Ghana Commodity Index provides a range of applications that both push updates on agricultural information and prices out to the field, and pull data in from the field.
Local Government/Decentralization
Forum Rejects Ahwoi's Proposals
GhanaWeb
Participants at a forum have disagreed with proposals by local governance expert, Prof Kwamena Ahwoi, that 30% membership of district assemblies should be appointed by chiefs. Prof Ahwoi, a Senior Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, proposed that the power vested in the President to appoint 30 percent membership to the Assemblies should be vested in the Regional Houses Chiefs.
Some other amendment proposals he made to the Constitutional Review Commission are the autonomy of the District Assemblies Common Fund Administrator and Members of Parliament should not be appointed as Regional Ministers.