Below are some current developments on agriculture in Africa:
Agricultural Issues
Tiger-nuts: Untapped Non-traditional Export Crop
Ghana’s trade imbalance continues to widen up with massive imports as against limited export trade. The situation is a pivotal contributory factor to the craze for major international trading currencies, translating into the perennially depreciating cedi. Export earnings in the country are heavily dependent on cocoa and a few largely unprocessed commodities. In 2013, the non-traditional exports earnings were estimated at US$2.4billion; and government has targeted generating about US$5billion from the sector by 2019. Stakeholders in the export sector have been exploring available opportunities, especially in agriculture, to factor into the country’s export commodities net so as to bridge the huge trade disparity and position Ghana as an export-driven economy. There is a large variety of agricultural crops cultivated here in the country with enormous economic usefulness, but they are yet to catch the attention of necessary institutions for the needed support to unearth their full-scale potentials. One such crop is tiger nuts, which are locally known as ‘atadwe’.
Cashew Nuts can Fetch Ghana 56 Mllion dollars Annually
Ghana’s annual revenue from exporting raw cashew nuts is estimated at 56 million dollars, Mr. Joseph Yeung, Managing Director of the Mim Cashew Processing Company, has revealed. He said value of processed cashew kernels, which is 21 per cent of the 65,000 metric tons of the annual raw cashew produced is also expected to earn the country 102 million dollars. Mr. Yeung, disclosed this when Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Minister of Trade and Industry paid a working visit to the company’s plant site at Mim in the Asunafo North Municipality. He explained Ghana has numerous opportunities from processing cashew nuts and advised the government implement policies that would make the industry attractive for rapid economic transformation and development. Mr. Yeung noted that prior to the border closure by Ivory Coast, the company was able to procure about 50 per cent of raw cashew nuts through...
Banks Urged to Support Oil Palm Sector
Banks and other financial institutions have been challenged to take a strong stance in providing financial incentives to support the oil palm sector, as the commodity’s value chain holds great potential to be the next economic driver and improve rural livelihoods. “From the government side, nobody gives the smallholder farmers any financial support. The banks also continuously deny them financial support; this is a major hindrance to the survival of the oil palm industry. “Investors and banks must begin to invest heavily in oil palm value chain as this can allow them to push for best practice via responsible investment standards, and limiting their financial services to certified sustainable companies. "Oil palm growers ultimately rely on their own little financial support to balance their books and finance further expansion of their plantations; this is not helping the sector to achieve …
Cocoa Farmers say Output to Bounce Back Next Season
Some cocoa farmers in Ghana say the next main crop will easily outstrip the disappointing 2014/15 season, adding weight to a government forecast that next season's output will rise to around 900,000 tonnes. Investors’ confidence in Ghana's ability to forecast its cocoa output took a hit this year, when regulator Cocobod revised an initial prediction of more than 1 million tonnes made at the start of the season in October to around 700,000 tonnes. The revision, and the fact that it came relatively late in the season with little warning, rattled global cocoa markets because Ghana is the world's largest producer after Ivory Coast. Rains earlier in the year have yielded a good crop of the flowers that should turn into cocoa pods given the right conditions, said farmers in two of the country's main growing regions.
COCOBOD Council Denies Loss of US$600m Cocoa Money
The highest decision-making body of unionised workers in the cocoa sector, the Supreme Consultative Council, has denied media reports that the actions of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and its staff have cost the country about US$600 million in cocoa money this year. It has, therefore, appealed to the media and the general public to desist from spreading such misinformation, else it will lower the morale of the thousands of people working in the sector. The chairman of the council, Alhaji Hassan Iddris, also warned his colleagues, especially those at management level, to desist from aiding in the spread of wrong information through the leaking of documents to the media and general public. "We all know that peace and tranquility brings about high productivity and if that peace is endangered because of wrong reports, misinformation and accusations, then the morale of the staff can go down and that …
COCOBOD in Hot Chase for Gh¢3.6m from Four Firms
Four licensed buying companies are seriously being pursued by COCOBOD for owing it to the tune of Gh¢3,688,491.96, Kasapafmonline.com can say. The firms are SUNCOM Seed Fund, Ghana Cocoa, Coffee and Shea nut Farmers Association, Sunshine Commodities and Big Fat Company. SUNCOM Seed Fund owes COCOBOD Gh¢989,085.88 while the Ghana Cocoa, Coffee and Shea nut Farmers Association is indebted to the Board to the tune of GH¢2,626,000.00. Sunshine Commodities, on the other hand, owes COCOBOD GH¢49,787.16 with Big Fat Company said to be indebted to the Board to the tune of GH¢23,618.92. The decision of COCOBOD to give the four firms a hot for their money was necessitated by a recommendation from the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC) to ensure prompt recovery of debts.
Techiman Cocoa Farmers Petition Government
The Cocoa Farmers Association of Techiman, has petitioned government to intervene in order for Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to rescind its decision to relocate the Techiman Cocoa District Office to the western side of Brong-Ahafo Region. The Association, with a numerical strength of 3000 in 100 societies, each comprising 30 members in the Techiman, Wenchi, Nkoranza South and the Kintampo North Municipalities, Nkoranza North, Kintampo South and Techiman North Districts said they prefer to have their own District which has been in Techiman since 1983. The petition was jointly signed by Messrs Kwasi Arhin, Anthony Twi, Nana Appiah Zachariah, Twi Brempong and Haruna Afram, Vice Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, Organiser and Assistant Secretary and copied to Ghana News Agency (GNA). The petition claimed that “the Techiman District is now the leading cocoa growing area in the Region that has made youth participation in agriculture increased tremendously”.
Government Scratches Head over Fertilizer Subsidy Saga
Government’s fertilizer subsidy programme risks total collapse following admission by the Food and Agric Ministry of lack of funds to pay dealers in time for supplies to be made to farmers during the crop planting season. The suppliers are currently owed several months in arrears and the inability of the government to fulfill its debt obligations has put the fertilizer subsidy programme in limbo as more dealers are seriously reconsidering their participation in the programme. Already, Yara Ghana, a company which in 2014 supplied more than half of the market’s needs has opted out of the fertilizer programme raising fears over the possible drop in crop yields at a time the rainfall pattern has been disappointing the three northern regions of Ghana, considered the food basket of the country. But the Deputy Minister Food and Agriculture, Dr Alhassan Yakubu who read a speech on behalf on the minister told Parliament that the government was hopeful of meeting the payment demands of the suppliers by the end of the year.
Fertilizer Subsidy Programme Still on - Fiifi Kwetey
Mr. Fiifi Kwetey, the Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) has assured farmers that government’s fertilizer subsidy programme was still on course. Mr. Kwetey said even though the programme experienced some few hitches this year, it was still on course and farmers would soon receive the fertilizers. The National Fertilizer Subsidy Programme is a policy intervention introduced by government to enhance food production and food security in the country. He gave the assurance on Thursday, when he paid a working visit to Chemico Limited, one of the companies awarded a contract to produce and distribute fertilizers to farmers. He said it was the hope of his Ministry that the programme would take off earlier in 2016 than it happened this year, even as government was addressing the country’s economic challenges. The Minister explained that his outfit has no direct control over the distribution of the fertilizer to the farmers as being speculated in the media.
‘Aging Farmer Population Worrying’
Agriculture activist, Alberta Nana Yaa Akosa has described as worrying the country’s aging farmer population -- which she said threatens sustainability of food production. Speaking to the B&FT ahead of the National Food and Agric Show (FAGRO) Agric Summit, Ms. Akosa said: “There is compelling evidence of an aging farmer population in the country, which must be addressed to facilitate sustainability in agricultural production. Most farmers in Ghana are over 55 years and our life-expectancy averages between 55-60 years”. According to her, the country already relies heavily on imported food to feed its growing population, and reversing the trend would mean that the youth must take up the mantle and venture into agriculture. This year’s Agric Summit, which is on the theme ‘Further unlocking the Ghanaian Agricultural Sector: The role of Youth & Women’, is geared toward providing a launch-pad that seeks to reverse the trend.
Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX) to Limit Risks in Agric Sector
Chairman of the Project Steering Committee of the recently launched Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX), Joe Tackie, has called on financial institutions to get more engaged -- particularly in the settlements aspect of the GCX -- to enable them understand the platform better so as to provide much-needed financial assistance to smallholder farmers. He told the B&FT in an interview that the common commodities trading platform has certain innovative features which have been designed to limit risks in the agric sector to attract agricultural investments, aside from the provision of a ready market and formalization of commercial activities. “One such innovative structure of the GCX is the Warehouse Receipt System, whereby farmers will be provided with receipts based on the food crops that they deposit. “It is therefore prudent for banks to understand the system, so that they can see these receipts as collateral to provide funds to various actors along the agric value chain to push sector productivity and growth,” he said.
UNICOF Petitions Supreme Court over ADB’s IPO
The Union of Industry Commerce and Finance (UNICOF) has filed a suit at the Supreme0020 Court challenging the commencement of the Agricultural Development Bank’s (ADB) Initial Public Offer (IPO). UNICOF wants the court to stop the IPO, which it described as illegal. This comes after it emerged in a Citi Business News investigation that the Member of Parliament for New Juaben South constituency, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah had withdrawn his suit invoking the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to compel ADB to seek parliamentary approval before it proceeds with the planned public offering. UNICOF in its suit is seeking the following reliefs; A declaration that the agreement signed by the 1st defendant ADB with two foreign companies namely Atlas Mara Limited and the Norwegian Investment fund for Developing Countries, for the sale and purchase of 25% and 15% respectively of the issued shares of ADB without parliamentary approval is unconstitutional and in violation of Article 181 clause 1 of the 1992 constitution.
Sustainable Agriculture Requires Commitment – Scientist
An Assistant Research Scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, says sustainable agriculture requires a commitment to changing public policies, economic institutions, and social values. Mr. Asieku Yahaya said a wide diversity of strategies and approaches are necessary to create a more sustainable food system and those would range from specific and concentrated efforts to alter specific policies or practices, to the longer-term tasks of reforming key institutions, rethinking economic priorities, and challenging widely-held social values. He said some of government policies are impeding the goals of sustainable agriculture, and called for new ones to promote environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. For example, commodity and price support programmes could be restructured to allow farmers to realise the …
Stakeholders in Central Region Confer on Pelagic Fisheries Management
Stakeholders in the fishing sector in the Central Region, converged in Cape Coast to discuss positive action options to secure and rebuilt, healthy Small Pelagic Fisheries in the country. The landing of small pelagic which includes sardinella, mackerel and other fishes have decreased in the country due to weak governance, overcapacity and an open-access fishery resulting in over fishing from an increasing number of boats and fishers. The stakeholders’ workshop was attended by traditional leaders, chief fishermen, canoe owners, fishmongers and representatives from Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, Central Regional Development Commission and law enforcement agencies. It formed part of series of activities under the five year USAID/ Ghana Sustainable Fisheries Management Project (SFMP) aimed at contributing to the rebuild of Ghana's marine fisheries stocks and catches…
MESTI to Plant 30 Million Trees Annually - Dr Tia
The Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), is embarking on a sustainable planting and nurturing of 30 million trees annually, Dr Alfred Sugri Tia, a Deputy Minister of MESTI has announced. He said the programme which is known "Green Ghana Programme", would be executed through coordination of its agencies, government departments and other stakeholders. Dr Tia who was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, in Accra on Thursday, on the wanton destruction of trees in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions and illegal mining in the southern sector. He said his outfit had launched the programme to check uncontrolled logging and surface mining, which had further deteriorated the environment and needed to be reclaimed for posterity…
New FAO Representative Presents Credentials to AU
Dr Patrick Kormawa, newly appointed Sub regional Coordinator for Eastern Africa FAO Representative to Africa and United Nation Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), has presented his credentials to the Chairperson of the African Union Commission. Welcoming Mr. Kormawa, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, expressed appreciation for the long standing collaboration between FAO and the African Union Commission (AUC). Dr Zuma called upon FAO to join the AUC and other development partners in the implementation of the 10-year medium-term plan of the AU Agenda 2063. She said at the recent AU Summit in Johannesburg held last month, African women urged the Heads of State and Governments to promote mechanisation in the agricultural sector, to eliminate drudgery, low productivity and to enhance competitiveness. “Without access to modern technology and innovation, transforming Africa’s agriculture for prosperity and inclusive development would hardly be achieved,” Dr Zuma said.
Reports/Articles
Animal Traction – Potential and Constraints
Houssou et al
Although animal traction would be well-suited to cover parts of farm power demand in sub-Saharan Africa, the use of draft animals has been limited in the region. The authors demonstrate why this is the case in Ghana. Agricultural development is invariably associated with adequate farm power supply. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have experienced an increase in food demand in response to population growth, rural-urban migration and urbanisation. As result, there is a growing energy need in the agricultural sector in the sub-region. In 2003, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), only 35 per cent of farm power came from non-human power sources, indicating that there is a big potential for the use of mechanical farm power in the sub-region. In response, agricultural mechanisation has re-emerged recently in many countries in SSA. Many African governments have made considerable efforts to meet the energy needs of the agricultural sector. In Ghana, for example, these efforts have largely focused on the provision of subsidized…
Brokering Development: Enabling Factors for Public-Private-Producer Partnerships in Agricultural Value Chains
D Bruce Sarpong, H Anim-Somuah - 2015
Developing country governments and donors are increasingly looking to public–private partnerships (PPPs) to deliver growth and positive development outcomes in agriculture. Capturing learning from the experience of one PPP in Ghana, the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP), can provide important lessons for other programmes with PPP arrangements. In Ghana, these include the World Bank and USAID-funded Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (GCAP) and the IFAD-funded Ghana Agricultural Sector Investment Programme (GASIP) (2015–2020). The NRGP was designed to address the main challenges facing smallholder farmers in northern Ghana: limited access to inputs and services, low productivity and low prices. It also aimed to build organizational infrastructure to link smallholder farmers to end markets. The theory of change underlying the programme was that greater collaboration …
Analysis of Land Tenure Systems and Its Relationship with Productivity in the Agricultural Sector in Ghana
L Grega, EK Ankomah, SA Darkwah - Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et …, 2015
Analysis of Land Tenure Systems and its Relationship with Productivity in the Agricultural Sector in Ghana. The paper assesses the effects of Land Tenure systems and its relationship with agricultural productivity in Ghana. It discusses the complex nature of the Tenure systems and some of the reforms the country has done over the years and standard of living in the rural communities. In its assessments, this paper extracts information from Cross-Section Data and analyse it by applying Chi-square test to show the relationship between Land Tenure Systems and agriculture productivity. The outcome shows that Land Tenure Systems has a direct influence on productivity in Agriculture and can result in poverty and low standard of living among peasant farmers. In view of the problems, the paper discusses the prevalence of the terms, rules and regulations of the land acquisitions process and its repercussions and …
Out-of-Pocket Health Payments: a Catalyst for Agricultural Productivity Growth, but with Potentially Impoverishing Effects
LM Séne, O Badiane, S Dakar - 2015
This paper analyses the relationship between health expenditures and productivity in Senegal by using a dynamic recursive Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model that has been run from 2011 to 2020. This model links the growth rate of agricultural productivity to household investment in health goods taking into account catastrophic health payments considered as barriers to achieve maximal productivity gains. In fact, despite being a potential catalyst for productivity, out-of-pocket health expenditures can be a burden after a critical threshold has been crossed, and might potentially decrease household resources and place constraints on the productivity generating process. Results show a positive impact on poverty reduction when the Government reduces the burden on households by financing catastrophic payment overshoots. Lower health costs also appear to improve households’ …
Economic Implications of Historically Evolved Self-Efficacy: Agent-Based Modeling and Empirical Evidence from Rural Ghana
D Wuepper, B Drosten - 2015
We argue that self-efficacy is important for economic performance. Selfefficacy is at the psychological core of agency and entrepreneurship. It enables people to learn, and change and act to better their livelihood. In an agent-based model we show how different levels of individual self-efficacy can evolve as a reaction to environmental demands and rewards to human intervention. The basic idea is that people learn how to best survive in their specific environment and teach this knowledge to their children. Because this cultural heritage only adapts very slowly to the current environment, people might have self-efficacy levels that better fit to the context of their ancestors than to their own. With empirical data from Ghana, we defind that different-levels of selfefficacy have developed from different historic environmental conditions and directly influence today´s household incomes, controlling for observable incentives…
Trace Element Geochemistry of A Reused Illicit Mine Area For an Agricultural Purpose in Nadowli District Of NW Ghana
E Arhin, MS Zango, O Boansi
Trace elements in soils depending on the pathways, mode of exposure and concentrations can be essential or non-essential to human-life developments. However there are some that are potentially toxic. Mobilization of the trace elements can be influenced by environmental conditions. Whilst others cause depletion others contributes to metal-ion enrichments that generally depends on surface processes and the prevailing human activities in the area. The 18 trace elements analysed from the 154 soil samples collected and studied; 2 chalcophile elements As and Cd listed among the potentially toxic elements (PTEs) were identified to be extremely and moderated polluted. Enrichment factors (EF) of 42.3 and 1.45 were computed for these 2 PTEs. On the contrary the essential elements Cu, Ni and Zn required for human metabolism rather showed depletions of10.5, 24.0 and 21.0 respectively. Copper, Ni and Zn …
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