Agricultural Issues
Ghana to Become Leading Rice Producer in West Africa
Ghana News Agency
Ghana is poised to increase rice production from 20,000 metric tonnes to 200,000 metric tonnes by 2015 to become the highest producer in West Africa. Mr. Daniel Amelorku, District Chief Executive of South Tongu District in the Volta Region said the district had provided 1,000 hectares of land to Global Agri-Development Company (GADCO) and would be expanded to 4,000 hectares within four years to achieve the target. He said provision of necessary machinery and promotion of Private Public Partnership policy (PPP) had been intensified to enable the country to achieve the target to reduce rice importation. Mr. Amelorku announced this when officials of Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) visited the Fievie Rice Project in the Volta Region on Tuesday. [more]
Agriculture Helped Knock Down Inflation Figures
Agriculture played a significant role in the lowering of Ghana’s single-digit inflation figures to a record four consecutive times fall since February 2011, Nii Amasa Namoale, Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture in charge of Fisheries, said yesterday. He said, in addition to government’s social democratic path of building a better Ghana through stabilizing the currency, prudent spending in growth areas of the economy and creating a favorable macro-economic environment, agricultural activities contributed immensely in keeping the country’s inflation figures in a single digit range and further down. [more]
Oil Effects on Ghana
We Need Sustainable Oil Sector
Ghana News Agency
Mrs. Sherry Ayittey, Minister of the Environment, Science and Technology, at the weekend underscored the need for a sustainable oil sector that would not compromise the nation’s environment. She said the Environmental Protection Agency was collaborating effectively with the Ministry of Energy to ensure that the best practices were applied by operators in the sector to ensure sustainable development. Mrs. Ayittey made the call when she spoke on the State of the Environment in Ghana and the Role of Women in Nation Building, at a durbar to climax activities commemorating the 10th Anniversary Celebration of Obonu FM in Tema on the theme: “Our Culture, Our Development.” [more]
Ghana: We Smell 'Dutch Disease' in Oil Sector
The Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas is raising the concern that Ghana has already started showing signs of the Dutch Disease, few months into the production of oil and gas in the country. The Platform's Coordinator, Mohammed Amin Adam, addressing the opening of the Summer School of the Africa Regional Extractive Industries Hub at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), noted though it is early days, analyses of the first quarter of the economy shows that the country is on the path of developing the unpopular phenomenon often associated with oil producing countries. [more]
Relevant Research Articles
A Closer Look at the Market-based Approach to Poverty Reduction through the Lens of Microfinance and Energy Programs
The paper considers the challenges associated with market-approach to poverty as a development strategy as well as some success stories from market-approach models. [more]
Detrimental Land Grabbing or Growth Poles? – Determinants and Potential Development Effects of Foreign Direct Land Investments
Large scale land acquisition has become a source of concern is an important issue for food security in the future. For poor countries, there are advantages such as access to specific markets, technology, management, capital, and finance which can create a considerable number of jobs. At the same time, there is a threat for local populations and for the environment. This paper considers the importance of large-scale land acquisition and the opportunities and threats of it to rural development among other things. [more]
Determinants and Prevalence of Rural Poverty in West, East and Southern African Countries
In this paper, we determine the extent to which the variation in poverty incidence can be explained by institutional/community factors, and how the results can be used to evaluate the potential impact on poverty levels of change in factors found to have a significant influence on poverty incidence in some selected countries of East, Southern and West Africa. [more]
Articles from the Daily Graphic
Cocobod Drills 55 Boreholes for Six Cocoa Districts
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is undergoing a project to sink 55 boreholes in six districts in the Eastern region to provide potable water to deprived communities, with technical support from the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA). 44 boreholes out of the 55 have already been drilled and will be fitted with the necessary parts to begin their usage by the communities states Mr. Theophilus Mensah, an engineer with the CWSA. He explained that the project will significantly improve water supply in the communities on completion.
AADO Gives $40000 to South Tongu District Assembly for Pepper Cultivation
The Afro Asian Development Organization (AADO) has given a $40,000 grant to the South Tongu District to cultivate bird eye chilli pepper for local consumption and export. 200 farmers from the district are expected to benefit from the project which started this month. The organization is a 30 member inter-governmental organization with members from Africa and Asia and aims to develop understanding among its members to explore opportunities to coordinate their efforts to promote welfare and eradicate thirst, hunger, illiteracy and poverty among rural people. The South Tongu District is one of the leading producers of pepper in the country. However, they lack proper marketing, which a result in post-harvest loses.