Below are some current developments on Agriculture in Africa:
Agricultural Issues
Agricultural Sector Contribution to GDP, falling – Minister
The Agricultural sector contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had fallen from 31.8 per cent in 2009 to 22 per cent in 2013. This has allowed the service sector to assume the first place followed by the industry sector. Mr Clement Kofi Humado, Minister of Food and Agricultural, attributed the fall from the first place in 2009 to the third position in 2013 to movement of the Ghanaian economy away from agriculture to industry and service sectors. Speaking at the Meet-The-Press series on Wednesday in Accra, the Minister said: As the Ghanaian economy matures just like other maturing economies people, especially the youth are no longer showing interest in farming but want white collar jobs.
Government Opens Up Black Volta to Commercial Vegetable Production
Government has through the Northern Rural Growth Programme completed the construction of a 17.5km feeder road from Yagha to Gbetuori in the Upper West Region. The project is expected to open up the area along the Black Volta to commercial vegetable and cereal crop production. Meanwhile plans are also far advance to build a Park House at Yagha for the cold storage of perishable goods produced along the area. This is an intervention targeted at reducing post-harvest losses and prevent farmers from forcing to sell their produce at prices below the cost of production...It was on the theme: Culture as a vehicle for the promotion of peace and social cohesion.
GREL Sources for €7.5m Facility to Develop New Rubber Plantation
Societe Generale Ghana (SG Ghana), a leading banking institution and a subsidiary of the Societe Generale Group, has supported the Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL) with a €7.5 million 10-year facility to assist the company develop a new rubber plantation as part of its expansion programme. Deputy Managing Director of SG Ghana, Borut Vujcic, signed the agreement for the bank while the Managing Director of GREL, Lionel Barre initialled for GREL recently in Accra. Borut Vujcic stated that the facility showed that SG Ghana was committed to meeting the needs of the private sector by providing it with the needed long-term financing.
Innovative Ways Needed for Farm Extension Services
The Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) Mr Kofi Humadu, on Wednesday said Ghana needs to find innovative ways to deliver extension services to farmers. He said with the current challenges of inadequate extension staff and dwindling resources, government will have to support institutions such as the Plantwise (PW) initiative of the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI) to enable the country to overcome most of the challenges facing the agriculture sector. Mr Humadu stated in a speech read for him at the review and planning workshop of CABI in Accra. The workshop was to provide a platform for policymakers, extension and plant protection officers, research scientist, agro input dealers and other stakeholders to discuss and share knowledge and experiences to enhance PW activities in Ghana.
Ghana’s CSIR Say GMO is Good
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has reiterated its commitment to back farmers in Ghana to adopt genetically modified (GM) foods. The council believes in the use of technology to improve the living standards of farmers through the adoption of GM foods. Abdullai Baba Salifu, Director-General of CISR, interacting with journalists during the press launch of the Biotech/GM Crops in Accra, said the phenomenon was not new. “With the advances in technology, we are able to find out precisely the location in plants of genes responsible for a particular character, for example increased yield and put it in a local crop which does not yield high because…
SNV Calls for Protection of Mangroves Ecosystem
The Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV), a non-governmental organisation, has called on district assemblies to intensify efforts towards mangrove rehabilitation and protection of wetlands, along the coastal regions to avoid storms and flooding. Mr Emmanuel Aziebor, SNV Project Manager for Improved Fish Smoking and Mangroves Rehabilitation, made the call at the celebration of the World Earth Day in Accra. Mr Aziebor expressed worry that mangroves that are so valuable are rapidly depleting by identified threats such as urbanisation and wood collection for charcoal production. He said mangroves cover about 14,000 hectares of the total land of Ghana and are mostly found along the coastal belt...mangroves ecosystem are tremendously valuable because they serve as sea-defense and habitat for aquatic and terrestrial species by…
Farmers Urged to Adopt Zero Tillage Method
Farmers have been urged to adopt Zero Tillage methods of farming to enable them cut down cost, labour and to increase their yield. Zero Tillage farming, also known as no-tillage or direct seeding is a scientific method of tilling or cultivating a field in which the soil is disturbed as little as possible by essentially not ploughing the field. The crop is then planted directly into a seedbed which has not been tilled since the harvest of the previous crop.Speaking at a two-day capacity building workshop at Tongo for 80 farmers drawn from 80 households in the Gbane and Gbeogo communities in Talensi District of the Upper East Region,…
Sad SADA saga: Rot Caused by Poor Decision Making - Dr. Akwetey
Governance expert, Dr. Emmanuel Akwetey, has identified poor decision making as the cause of financial and administrative lapses at the Savanah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA). The Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), a governance think-tank, said on Newsfile Saturday, that he suspects "there is a certain tension between the bureaucracy [civil servants at SADA] and the politicians, the political parties", which has contributed to the rot at the Authority. Joy News' Manasseh Azure Awuni , as part of an on-going stark revelations at SADA, reported that farmers and service providers, who took part in a …
Don't Leave SADA to Die', Savannah Ministers Rally Around Troubled Agency
Ministers of the three regions of the North have renewed their confidence in Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) despite an avalanche of reports of impropriety, corruption and malfeasance. The project, seen as government's "comprehensive" response to reduce poverty in the three mainly savannah regions, has only served to increase public perception of corruption. This was after JOY NEWS investigations uncovered irregularities in the operations of SADA. The project cultivated 35-acres of mangos without any plan to irrigate the plantation in the dry season causing the mangos, along with the prospect of job creation, to wither away.
Government Takes Steps to Increase Local Rice Production
The government has put in place interventions to scale up rice production in the country. To that end, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) has developed a national rice seed road map to ensure national self-sufficiency in quality rice seed production by 2018. The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Clement Kofi Humado, who announced this in Accra yesterday when the ministry took its turn at the Meet-the-Press series, said the average annual rice import bill amounted to $306 million. He said domestic production stood at 46 per cent of total supply, with the shortfall of 54 per cent being met by imports .
Natural Cocoa Has Lot of Health Benefits - Mr Fodjour
Mr Amponsah Fodjour, Chief Executive of Centuries International, producers of Broma Pure Natural Cocoa, has advised Ghanaians to take a lot of natural cocoa products, since they have a lot of health benefits. He said the natural cocoa product help prevents diseases like diabetes, asthma, cancer, menstrual pains, stroke, and hypertension, among others. Mr Fodjour gave the advice during a promotional engagement and sensitization encounter with staff of the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Accra on Tuesday on the importance of taking the natural cocoa product. Speaking on the health benefit of the broma pure natural cocoa, Mr Fodjour advised people who use the product that after taking a spoon without any sugar or milk, one has to wait for about 20 minutes before taking in any other food.
Government Tasks Regions On Rice Production
Ghana had already become self-sufficient in yam, cassava and maize production. And a breakthrough in rice production would therefore make the country a leading food producer for both domestic consumption and export to neighboring countries. Mr. Kofi Humado, Minister of Food and Agriculture said this when he addressed the chiefs and people of the Likpe traditional area during their biennial Lekoryi festival celebration at Likpe- Mate in the Volta Region.
Smallholder Farmers Receive Training for Increased Yield
A capacity-building training workshop to equip smallholder and low-income farmers with the expertise for improved farming practices, has been held at Ejura in the Ejura-Sekyedumase Municipality of the Ashanti Region. The programme, held under the auspices of the World Food Programme (WFP) under its Purchase for Progress (P4P) Initiative, is part of efforts to address some of the major constraints confronting the farmers. These include low productivity, post-harvest losses and inadequate market infrastructure. Ms Pippa Bradford, Country Director of the WFP, in an address read on her behalf noted that low productivity and limited market access restricts smallholder farmers to a little more than subsistence levels of food production, making them one of the most food-insecure livelihood groups in Ghana.
Ghana’s Post-Harvest Losses To Be Tackled
The post-harvest loses that characterized the tomatoes sector, would soon be a thing of the past as government is in touch with Dutch company to buy and process the tomatoes into cans and paste. Steps are being taken to revamp existing silos as well as construct ultra-modern warehouses and other storage facilities to stock-up food products in the event of bumper harvest. The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Kofi Humado announced this recently at the meet-the-press series in Accra.
Public Advised on Proper Application of Agro-chemicals
Dr Margaret Ottah Atikpo, Deputy Director of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSRI) - Food Research Institute (FRI), has called for the proper application of agro-chemicals to avoid negative health effects. Dr Atikpo observed that the increasing number of cancerous diseases nowadays in the country resulted from bad farming practices and the improper application of chemicals by some farmers. She, therefore, denied the assertion that Genetically Modified (GM) foods had negative health implications, particularly causing cancerous diseases. Dr Atikpo made the call in a presentation on the topic: Modern Agricultural Biotechnology a Tool towards Food Security in Ghana, at a day regional workshop jointly organized by the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa (OFAB) and CSIR at Abesim near Sunyani.
Reports/Articles
Zero by 2030: An Evaluation of USAID's Role in Ending Extreme Poverty
V Aflalo, Y Altamirano, C Backman, AM Barbour… - 2014
More than 1 billion people, a sixth of the world, currently lives within the constraints of extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.25 USD a day per capita. Extreme poverty entails even more than a low average income— it creates the most deplorable conditions in health, education, food security, social mobility, and economic development. In today’s modern world of tools and technology, conditions of extreme poverty simply should not exist. International development agencies such as the United Nations, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, national governments of developing countries, NGOs, and private actors all agree that the elimination of extreme poverty by 2030 is a feasible goal.
Impacts of Reducing Global Food Loss and Waste on Food Security, Trade, GHG Emissions and Land Use
Zeynep Burcu Irfanoglu, Uris Baldos, Tom Hertel and Dominique van der Mensbrugghe - 2014
With global population slated to increase by another 2 billion persons by 2050 combined with agriculture’s existing pressure on natural resources and responsible directly and indirectly for a significant percentage of annual greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the level of losses and wastes in the agro-food complex - from field through to final consumers—would be one option to help reduce the pressures on resources and eliminate hunger. Gustavsson et al. (2011) have estimated these losses and wastes to be on the order of magnitude of 33 percent of agricultural production - with significant differences in their sourcing across countries and regions. It is estimated that 30 to 40% losses occur in developing countries and, therefore, measures to avoid this will have a big effect on food security and food safety.
Perspective of the Economy Situation in the Fishing Industry of the Volta Basin in Ghana: Case Study of Dzemeni and Kpando-Torkor
MA Amu-Mensah, FK Amu-Mensah, N Obirih-Opareh - Sociology Mind, 2014
The paper examines the existing economic situation and how it operates following the introduction of cage culture. It assesses the challenges facing major fishing communities along the Volta Lake and describes government’s role. Using a participatory rural appraisal, questionnaire administration and participant observation, data were gathered from two districts in the Volta Basin of Ghana. Key areas of the study included, limited accesses to information, ownership control of the means of production, financial institutions, decision making with regards to resource use, and management and investments in fishery. The result shows that soaring prices of fishery implements due to high exchange rates, coupled with declining fish stocks have reduced the profitability of the processing and sale of fish….
Public-Sector Agricultural Research Priorities for Sustainable Food Security
GC Nelson, D van der Mensbrugghe - 2014
There is widespread agreement that our ability to deliver sustainable food security for all will be challenged in three dimensions - population growth, constrained natural resources, and climate change. The latest Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World (FAO 2012), estimates the number of undernourished in the world at around 850 million persons (averaged for 2010–2012). The period of relatively steady decline since 1990 was interrupted after 2007 when food prices spiked, and the numbers have remained substantially unchanged since then. Looking forward, the population will increase to more than 9 billion persons by 2050 from today’s roughly 7.5 billion in the United Nations’ medium variant scenario. Global average per capita income will increase from $8,400…
Alternative Agricultural Price Distortions for CGE Analysis, 2007 and 2011
HG Jensen, K Anderson - 2014
A recent World Bank research project has generated an annual time series of distortions to agricultural incentives over the past half century for 82 countries, the majority of which are low-and middle-income countries (Anderson and Valenzuela 2008; Anderson and Nelgen 2013).This new dataset can provide an alternative set of estimates of agricultural price distortions in developing countries to those provided for 2007 in the GTAP 8 database and 2011 in the GTAP 9 database (see Narayanan et. al. 2012 and forthcoming). This World Bank resource contains ad valorem tax/subsidy rates on outputs, inputs, imports and exports by country, for as many as 75 agricultural products (around a dozen per country on average).
Poverty and Land Degradation Nexus: The Case of Asunafo, Ghana
Kenneth Peprah - 2014
Clarification of poverty-land degradation nexus is essential for finding solutions to the twin problems. Indigenous farmer perspective is sought through analysis of eleven indicators which are suggestive of poverty and land degradation via the application of pairwise ranking based on LSD (5%). The study reveals that the average scores of three indicators: food/feeding of farmer family, quality of farmer clothing/appearance and the tendency of borrowing money to make ends meet were higher than the calculated LSD. Also, the farmers felt the pinch of poverty more painfully in June than any other month. In response, government and NGOs are providing building materials and ….
Food Security in a Perfect Storm: Using the Ecosystem Services Framework to Increase Understanding
KS Madise, CM Shackleton, F Villa, TP Dawson - 2014
Achieving food security in a ‘perfect storm’ scenario is a grand challenge for society. Climate change and an expanding global population act in concert to make global food security even more complex and demanding. As achieving food security and the millennium development goal (MDG) to eradicate hunger influences the attainment of other MDGs, it is imperative that we offer solutions which are complementary and do not oppose one another. Sustainable intensification of agriculture has been proposed as a way to address hunger while also minimizing further environmental impact. However, the desire to raise productivity and yields has historically led to a degraded environment, reduced biodiversity and a reduction in ecosystem services (ES), with the greatest impacts affecting the poor….