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.