Agricultural Issues
GTLC Crafts Prototype Business Plans for Small Farmers
GhanaWeb
The Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition (GTLC) is crafting prototype business plans to help transform dreary micro agricultural ventures into sustainable businesses, Mr Lambert Luguniah, Acting GTLC Program Manager told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Ho. He was speaking at the Coalition’s Volta Regional Chapter sensitization public forum on effective business planning on agricultural production on Thursday. Mr. Luguniah said the plans crafted for agriculture businesses at Jana in the Northern Region and at Kasseh in the Greater-Accra Region with few adaptations, could become relevant to similar ventures in any part of the country. [more]
Food Crisis/Security
1.2 Million Ghanaians are Food Insecure - MOFA Director
GhanaWeb
Over 1.2 million Ghanaians, representing five per cent of the population, are food insecure. About 34 per cent of this population can be found in the Upper West with 15 per cent in the Upper East and 10 per cent in the Northern regions. Mr. Stephen Yakubu, Deputy Northern Regional Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) disclosed this when he delivered a paper on “Food Security in Northern Ghana: challenges and prospects” at a workshop by the Northern Ghana Food Security Resilience Project (NGFSRP) in Tamale on Thursday. [more]
Youth in Agric Program Contributing to Food Security
AllAfrica.com
Youth in Agriculture Program (YIAP) is a Government’s agricultural sector initiative with the objective of motivating the youth, to accept and appreciate agricultural production as a commercial venture, thereby taking up farming as a life time vocation. Increased productivity in the agricultural sector depends on the youth who constitute about 30% of Ghana’s active population. Their energy and numbers provide tremendous opportunities for increasing agricultural productivity. These were in a speech read on behalf of the Minister of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Mr. Kwesi Ahwoi, at policy dialogue recently organized by the Christian Council of Ghana under the theme, “Policy Options and Direction in Support of Food Availability and Security in Ghana.” [more]
In other news
The increase in extreme climate events that is expected to accompany climate change will have far-reaching impacts on agricultural production and food security, water availability, energy resources, health, biodiversity, and human settlement, especially in Africa. The timely provision of climate information may help vulnerable societies and individuals to prepare for these extreme events, thus mitigating the costs associated with bad years and allowing them to better capture the benefits associated with favorable climatic conditions. [more]
The Daily Graphic
The Food Basket, Inflation and Development
This article tackles a question that plagues many Ghanaians. They wonder why inflation has dropped and yet this does not reflect in their pockets, as increase in money supply is accompanied by a corresponding increase in goods and services to avoid the rise of inflation. Prices will not go up if increased production follows increase in money supply.
The article goes on to explain consumer inflation measurement as based on the prices of 242 items grouped into 12 baskets and 40 sub-baskets.
Source: Daily Graphic, Monday, August 29, 2011. No. 18624, page 7