Agricultural News
Burkina Faso Provides a Valuable Lesson for Boosting Agriculture in the North – Bawumia
Myjoyonline.com
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the 2012 vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, has noted that it would be important for Ghana to learn significant lessons from neighboring Burkina Faso on transforming and boosting our agriculture, particularly in Northern Ghana, and pledged that the Nana Akufo-Addo administration would aggressively focus on agriculture in the North, with the ultimate aim of making Northern Ghana the bread basket for Ghana and the sub-region. Dr. Bawumia made the comments while touring the Saboba constituency on Thursday. Speaking in Sambule, Dr. Bawumia said, “There is no reason why the North as a whole should not become the bread basket of West Africa as a whole. Irrigation facilities, making sure those fertilizers are available, making sure that tractors are available and seeing to it that our roads are in very good shape would be critical in realizing this vision and a Nana Akufo-Addo administration is committed to implementing policies that would transform agriculture holistically.” [more]
Government and FAO to increase guinea fowl production in Northern Ghana
GhanaWeb
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has supported the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to establish improved guinea fowl production in the three Northern regions, Dr Alfred Sugri Tia, a Deputy Minister for MOFA has said. He said the support was made up of the establishment of three guinea fowl hatcheries and demonstration guinea fowl breeding centres in Pong Tamale in the Northern Region, Paga in the Kassena-Nankana West district in the upper East Region and Babile in the Lawra district of the Upper West Region. Dr Tia, who said this in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, added that each incubator provided by FAO to the centres had the capacity of holding 2,500 eggs at a time with hatchery facilities. [more]
Reports
Land Rights and Rental Systems: Implications for Management of Conflicts Related to Land in Sawah based Rice Production Systems in Nigeria
African Study Monographs, 33 (3): 189-208, September 2012
This study examined the land rights and rental systems followed by sawah rice farmers in Nigeria. The study was conducted in six states in Nigeria that use sawah rice technology: Kwara, Ondo, Niger, Ebonyi, Kaduna, and Abuja, which is the Federal Capital Territory. A total of 124 sawah farmers were selected for participation based on their involvement in sawah-based rice production. Data used in this study were collected from October 2009 to January 2011 in all the sawah sites in Nigeria. T-test was used to determine significant differences in the yields and farm sizes of landlord and tenant farmers. The land tenure system practiced in the lowlands is governed primarily by inheritance (71.8%), with temporary arrangements made through rentals (37.1%). Tenants pay ₦12,000 ha-1year-1 in land-for-cash agreements and 5% of the total yield of rice in land-for-paddy agreements. Generally, agreements between landlords and tenants are verbal, binding, and honored by both parties. Land conflicts occur when either party breaches the agreement and always result in the landlords taking over the land. Significant differences in the farm sizes (t = 3.424 P<0.05 = 0.02) and yields (t = 3.167 P<0.05 = 0.01) of landlord and tenant farmers were found. The findings of the study indicate the importance of secured land tenure, which affects the practice of sawah and the productivity of rice farming. Sustaining and improving sawah rice production in the study area will require addressing the land tenure issues of both landlords and tenants. [more]
Agricultural Sector Policy Reforms: Implications for Poverty and the Environment in Malawi
A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Waikato
Since independence in 1964, Malawi has implemented a number of agricultural reforms particularly in the tobacco and maize sectors. These reforms have been designed with four key objectives as follows: (a) to improve smallholder prices particularly in the tobacco sector; (b) to increase income for the poor especially in the rural areas; (c) to reduce income inequality between smallholders and estate owners; (d) to ensure food security both at national and household levels. In this thesis, econometric and optimization techniques were employed to examine and explore the extent to which these objectives have been achieved. In addition, the links between poverty and deforestation in the country were investigated. Although some objectives have been achieved, there is underperformance in a number of areas. For instance, while there were improvements in the prices of tobacco that smallholders receive, reforms in the tobacco sector did not lead to a sustainable reduction in income inequality between small and large growers. In the maize sector, fertilizer subsidies were found to improve food security at the national level. However, at household level, maize production was heavily skewed with the south lagging behind the centre and the north. Although maize sector reforms improved income distribution for smallholders, they failed to improve the income level and poverty status of non-agricultural households in rural areas. [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.