Below are some current developments on Agriculture in Africa:
Agricultural Issues
Agric Support must Target Farmers - President John Dramani Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama has taken a strong position against agricultural programmes that are packaged to benefit technocrats, at the expense of farmers. "The direct benefits should go to farmers," he said, insisting that his government would not hesitate to reject any agricultural programme that took away the direct benefits from farmers and gave them to technocrats. "Technocrats in developing countries and mission support staff are happy to package programmes like these because of who the benefits go to," he said. Delivering the keynote address at the opening of the 38th Session of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, Italy, yesterday, the President indicated that he had kept a close eye on his Cabinet to ensure that the benefits of various agricultural programmes were not taken away from farmers, so that the agenda to transform the rural areas of Ghana became a reality.
Ghana to Learn New Agric Techniques from Israel
Ghana’s Ambassador to the State of Israel, Mr. Ernest Lomotey, has stated that improved agricultural technology is one of its focuses for further strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries. He said such aspects of bilateral relations would help Ghana produce all year round and the mission was working towards establishing a convergence between Israel’s accomplishments in agriculture and Ghana’s desire to expand productivity in this sector. Mr. Lomotey said Israel was known for its agricultural technology with half of all its agricultural land irrigated. “Israel has the highest proportion of agricultural land under irrigation worldwide which is a very remarkable success worth learning from.”
Israel Agrictech Targets Elimination of Ghana's Post-harvest Losses
The Embassy of Israel will on Tuesday, March 3 hold breakfast meeting for government officials, agricultural companies, farmers, agro-processors, financial and investment institutions. Major players in the agricultural field would meet to deliberate on the prospects, elimination of post-harvest losses and projections of participation in the upcoming Agritech 2015 in Israel. Public Diplomacy Coordinator of the Embassy of Israel, Mr. Seth Owusu-Mante said in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency at the weekend. Agritech is one of the world’s most important exhibitions in agricultural technologies. This year’s event will be held from April 28-30, 2015 at the Israel Trade Fairs and Convention Center in Tel Aviv.
Cocoa Farmers to Receive Seedlings to Replant old Farms|
More than 50 million seedlings are to be distributed this year to cocoa farmers to boost the production and harvest of cocoa. Out of the figure, cocoa farmers in the Eastern Region would receive 5,252,628 seedlings which are to be distributed by May this year. The Eastern Regional Manager of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Mr. Samuel Gyimah, disclosed this to the Daily Graphic after a forum organized by the Cocoa Health and Extension Division at Adawso in the Eastern Region. The Adawso district office of COCOBOD is making available 830,185 seedlings to cocoa farmers in Adawso alone. The rationale behind the distribution of the seedlings was to replace old cocoa trees which now had reduced yields, Mr. Gyamfi explained. Last year, Mr. Gyamfi said, the COCOBOD was able to reach out to about 3,000 cocoa farmers in the Eastern Region but that figure could change this year.
AWARD Announces Winners of 2015 Fellowships: 70 top African Women Agricultural Scientists
AWARD announces winners of 2015 fellowships: 70 top African women agricultural scientists from 11 countries chosen Rising to the Challenge! 2015 AWARD Fellowship Winners Set to Impact Smallholders in the Year of Women's Empowerment "Agricultural research and development in Mozambique is an important tool for increasing production, and consequently reducing household malnutrition and poverty, particularly in children and women," says Olivia Narciso Pedro, a lecturer and researcher at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique….According to an AWARD benchmarking study, the majority of those who produce, process, and market Africa's food are women, but only one in four agricultural researchers is female
Ghana: UNU-INRA Holds National Validation Workshop to Review Draft Country Assessment Report On Climate Change Impact
A national validation workshop on a country assessment study on Ghana on the impact of climate change on agricultural trade and food security has taken place in Accra. About 30 participants attended the workshop which brought together key stakeholders involved in climate change, agricultural trade and food security issues to review a draft assessment report on Ghana and to make recommendations for the report's improvement. It was organized by the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources (UNU-INRA), in collaboration with the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)… The two-year, four-phase project aims at assessing whether agricultural production systems and trade policies in ECOWAS can be adjusted to alleviate the impact of climate change on food security and promote sustainable development in the region.
Demand for Domesticated Grass-cutter Soars … Price up 67%
The price of domesticated grass-cutter has risen sharply on the back of increasing demand for farm-reared meat as ardent consumers shift their consumption pattern to home-bred grass-cutter in wake of the Ebola scare. Information available to B&FT indicates that grass-cutter farmers are cashing in on the growing demand for domesticated grass-cutter as against wild ones -- whose consumption has reduced significantly following the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa that has claimed thousands of lives. Over the past year, the price of domesticated grass-cutter has increased by about 67 percent from GH¢90 to GH¢150 as fears over Ebola -- a severe haemorrhagic fever that is thought to be transmitted to people from wild animals -- has forced meat consumers to be wary of consuming bush meat.
USAID Ghana Trains Media Practitioners on Agricultural Reporting
The USAID Ghana has asked media practitioners in across the country to tone down on the political issues and champion the course of pertinent issues that affect the ordinary Ghanaian especially agriculture. According to the USAID, even though agriculture is said to be the backbone of the Ghanaian economy less is said about the sector in the media. This it attributed to the lack of technical information Ghanaian journalist lack on agriculture to champion the course. It is against this backdrop that the USAID Ghana under its Agricultural Policy support project organized a 2 day workshop for media personnel in Accra on Agricultural reporting and communication. According to the chief of Party of the project, Walter Nunez-Rodriguez, the role agricultural plays in Ghana far outweighs the importance and attention given to the sector in the media. He hoped the training will go a long way to equip journalists on the…
Hunger Looms; Due to Unregulated Sale of Farmlands for Houses
With the increasing demand for housing, Ghanaians may soon go hungry if the sale of farmlands to real estate developers goes unregulated, a Senior Policy Advisor of the USAID Agricultural Policy Support Project has warned. According to Mr. Kwaku Owusu-Baah, the country faced danger as far as food production was concerned. This is as a result of the rate at which farmlands were shrinking as they were being sold to real estate companies and individuals desirous of owning homes. "A few years ago, peri-urban farming provided enough vegetables to feed Accra, but today we import vegetables from Burkina Faso. It is a challenge we need to look at and deal with before it gets out of hand," he said. Mr. Owusu-Baah, who was speaking at a media training on agriculture reporting in Dodowa, therefore, called on Parliament to take immediate steps to deal with the situation.
Leave our Lands Alone …Cry Tamale Vegetable Growers
Vegetable farmers in the Northern Region have expressed concern over rampant acquisition of green belts in the Tamale metropolis. The vegetable farmers say government needs to intervene as they are losing their farm lands, and by extension their means of livelihood. Demarcations can be seen in most vegetable farms in the Tamale metropolis, which are normally lowland areas and sometimes flooded during rainy seasons. However, developers are not perturbed about the consequences of flooding as they continue to take over the farmlands. The vegetable farmers are currently holding discussions with the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly and its development partners to assist them in rehabilitating some dams including the one behind Tamale Water Works to improve vegetable cultivation. Mr. Salifu Abdul-Karim, Chairman of the Vegetable Farmers Association in the Northern Region, appealed for …
Smallholder Farmers Want EDAIF Requirements Relaxed
Smallholder farmers say the requirements for accessing the Export Development and Agricultural Investment Fund (EDAIF) are too bureaucratic, thereby making it extremely difficult for them to enjoy fruit from the Fund. According to the farmers EDAIF is unfriendly to the average Ghanaian farmer, and it only presents financial opportunity to a small section of the farming class. They say financial support from the banking sector on the other hand is equally elusive to smallholder farmers, while the current access conditions for EDAIF further deepens their financial plight. Mrs. Vida Korang, a farmer, said: “EDAIF is far away from smallholder farmers; it concentrates on a few large-scale farmers. The Fund operators must bear in mind that smallholder farmers form the largest base of the agricultural workforce in this country and can’t be neglected”.
GMO debate Rages on
Last week, the Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Akwasi Oppong-Fosu inaugurated a 13-member Board of Directors of the National Biosafety Authority and called on the members to work hard to step-up public education on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). His call is apt since there is confusion over who to believe with regard to the ‘risks’ associated with the technology…GMOs are living organisms whose genetic material has been artificially manipulated in a laboratory through genetic engineering or GE. This relatively new science creates unstable combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and viral genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods. Virtually all commercial GMOs are engineered to withstand direct application of herbicide and/or to produce an insecticide. Despite biotech industry promises, none of the GMO traits currently on the market offer increased yield, drought tolerance, enhanced nutrition, or any other consumer benefit.
Food Shortage in the Sahel Imminent – FAO
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has noted that about 20 million people in the Sahel are still affected by food insecurity and are likely to see their situation deteriorate rapidly in 2015. A statement from FAO said already, nearly three million people across Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Mali and Mauritania do not have access to enough food and require urgent food assistance. FAO believes that in the next few months, the poor harvests and pasture deficits of 2014 will lead to depletion of food stocks and livestock degradation for the most vulnerable families during which time they will turn to survival strategies such as reducing the number of daily meals, contracting debts and selling their productive assets. The situation is further compounded by frequent population displacements due to conflicts and insecurity in Nigeria, Mali and the Central African Republic, since refugees often…
ECOWAS Community Development Programme to Mobilize 21 billion Dollars
The ECOWAS Community Development Programme (CDP) is set to mobilize about 21 billion U.S Dollars to enable them finance over 200 projects that cuts across various sectors of the economy in the West African Sub-region. The projects are part of a long term development strategy to be implemented over a five-year period. Sectors to benefit from the projects include transport infrastructure, energy, agriculture, health, education development, capacity building among other areas. Dr Guevera Yao, Coordinator of the ECOWAS- CDP made this known at a meeting of the Network of Economic Journalists in West Africa. The meeting brought journalists from 15 countries in the sub-region to review and validate the communication plan of an impending High level Conference and Roundtable to be held in Cote D'Ivoire later this year. Dr Yao said the ECOWAS -CDP already has seven billion dollars in their ….
Invest More Oil Revenues in Agriculture – ACEP
The Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP), a policy think tank of the extractive sector, has called for increase in the proportion of the oil revenue of the country invested in Agriculture. The center argued that increased investment in Agriculture was the fastest way to reduce poverty in the rural areas of the country. The call was made at a stakeholders’ forum organized by ACEP in Koforidua for civil society organizations in the Education, Trade Union and Agriculture Sectors. The aim of the meeting was to inform stakeholders on the spending strategies of revenue generated from oil in the country. The center called for more investment to be directed at modernizing the production of cocoa, to enable the country to maintain its position as the leading producer of cocoa in the world.
Samba Foods Issues IPO to Raise GH¢2.5million
Samba Foods Limited, an indigenous food processing and preservation business, has launched its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Ghana Alternative Market (GAX) of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) to raise GH¢2.5million. Samba Foods becomes the first local company to list equity on the GAX. Last year, Izwe Loans, a pan-African financial services group, also announced the listing of a GH¢80million Medium-Term Note Programme on the GAX. The company is offering 3,475,453 ordinary shares at a price of 72 pesewas between February 23rd and March 13th this year. The shares on offer represent approximately 58.16percent of post flotation issued shares. Leticia Osafo-Addo, Chief Executive Officer of the company, said the capital will basically be used for acquisition of state-of-the-art machines to enhance the company’s output and expand into the West African and European Union markets.
Local Poultry Dealers Displeased with Packaging
Wholesalers and retailers of local poultry products in Accra have threatened to boycott the local chicken products from Ghana Broiler Project (GHABROP). They criticized what they claimed as “poor packaging, branding and inconsistency” of the GHABROP chicken products. According to the dealers, the chicken products from GHABROP had no production and expiry dates on them as required by law. The local poultry traders expressed their frustration in an investigation carried out by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) as to why Ghanaians were not patronizing the local poultry products of GHABROP. The poultry dealers complained that, the boxes used in packing the products of GHABROP are inferior and easily gets torn exposing the products. Mr. Bernard Buckman, a dealer in poultry products, said the durability of the boxes and its attractiveness instills confidence in customers and reassures them …
Food Security/Crisis
Ebola-ravaged Communities in Guinea to Benefit from Food Security
Tens of thousands of people in rural areas of Guinea, worst-hit by the Ebola epidemic, would receive training on how to prevent the spread of the disease and support in producing food and generating income. This was attained through an agreement involving the World Bank, the Government of Guinea and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. A statement issued by the FAO and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday said as part of the initiative, five million dollars would be invested in FAO’s Ebola Response Programme which aims to assist rural households whose livelihoods and access to food were severely threatened by the impact of Ebola “The funding is a much needed contribution towards building the resilience of communities whose already precarious situation of chronic food insecurity has been exacerbated by Ebola-related disruptions to farm labour, agricultural…
Grameen Launches Media Project for Ghana Smallholders
A new initiative has been launched to increase food security for small holder farmers in five regions in Ghana. The initiative - ICT Challenge – is a partnership between the Grameen Foundation, Farm Radio International and Digital Green. Using extension agents, mobile apps, radio, video, text messaging and voice messages, the project will provide farmers with the information and support needed to adopt technology that increases their productivity and improves nutrition in their communities. ICT Challenge is part of the New Alliance ICT Extension Challenge Fund, a component of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. “We are focused on increasing food security for smallholder farmers in Ghana using a number of different channels to reach farmers with vital information that they need in order to drive productivity and ultimately increase income,” ….
Reports/Articles
Preliminary Study on Growth of Mixed Sex Nile Tilapia (Akosombo Strain) In a Reservoir-Based Fish Cage in Ghana
DN Akongyuure, E Agbeko, ED Abarike, ME Maruod… - Analysis, 2015
Aquaculture has contributed significantly to food security and employment in Ghana. The Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is the major farmed species and constitutes over eighty percent of aquaculture production in the country. The culture of all-male Nile tilapia is well established in Ghana making the acquisition of monosex seed very expensive for the ordinary fish farmers. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the growth performance of mixed sex of O. niloticus (Akosombo strain) in a reservoir based small cage for affordable fish production. The study was conducted in the Binaba reservoir from August, 2012 to February, 2013. Fingerlings were stocked in a 5 x 4 x 2 m cage and fed with floating commercial feed for six months. Length-weight of fish and water quality data were collected once every month. The results showed that specific growth rate (SGR) was 1.24 %/day, daily weight gain (DWG) 0.87g, …
Can we Exploit and Adapt Indigenous Knowledge and Ethno-botanicals for a Healthy Living in the Face of Emerging Diseases like Ebola in Africa
KA Yongabi, L DeLuca, K Mshigeni, SKK Mwendwa… - American Journal of Clinical …, 2015
In this essay, we attempted to catalogue and describe African indigenous knowledge, in contributing to sustainable health development in Sub Saharan Africa. In the face of poverty and threats of diseases such as Ebola. We also describe how biotechnology can enhance cultural mechanism for improved health care. A snap shot of certain cultural habits that promote disease dissemination that would have to be modified is described. This report is basically a descriptive essay and partly based on a survey and collection of indigenous practices in Cameroon, and some cultures across countries in SSA. Some of the traditional knowledge relevant to disease transmission and control may form basis for experimentation, validation, development and application of appropriate medical biotechnologies for cheap, low tech disease control strategies and healthy living through a number of ethno-botanicals medicines, such as…
Firm Heterogeneity in Food Safety Provision Evidence from Aflatoxin Tests in Kenya
C Moser, V Hoffmann - 2015
The lack of a reliably safe food supply in developing countries imposes major costs on both public health and market performance. This paper addresses the question of whether and why food processing firms voluntarily invest in food safety in the absence of effective regulatory enforcement. Using data from more than 900 maize flour samples representing 23 distinct brands in eastern and central Kenya, we explore the relationship between price, brand, and aflatoxin contamination. Aflatoxin is a toxin common in maize, groundnuts, and other crops around the world; and although it is unobservable to the consumer, it may be correlated with other quality characteristics. We find a strong negative correlation between price and contamination rates, which is consistent with certain brands investing more in quality to avoid loss of reputational capital.
Mechanization Outsourcing Clusters and Division of Labor in Chinese Agriculture
X Zhang, J Yang, T Reardon - 2015
Most of the poor in the developing countries are smallholder farmers. Improving their productivity is essential for reducing poverty. Despite small landholdings, a high degree of land fragmentation, and rising labor costs, agricultural production in China has steadily increased. If one treats the farm household as the unit of analysis, it would be difficult to explain the conundrum. When seeing agricultural production from the lens of division of labor, the puzzle can be easily solved. In response to rising labor costs, farmers outsource some power-intensive stages of production, such as harvesting, to specialized mechanization service providers, which are often clustered in a few counties and travel throughout the country to harvest crops at very competitive service charges. Through such an arrangement, smallholder farmers can stay viable in agricultural production.