Below are some current developments on agriculture in Africa:
Agricultural Issues
Agric Ministry Launches New Strategy to Ensure Growth, Gender Parity
A revised national gender and agriculture development strategy to address the current agricultural challenges and ensure gender equity in the sector has been launched in Accra. Dubbed the “Gender and Agriculture Development Strategy II”, the policy is a revision of the already existing strategy which was crafted in 2001 to address gender-related concerns in the agriculture sector. Initiated by Women in Agriculture Development of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and supported by development partners, the policy is intended to enhance equity in agriculture service delivery and access to inputs. A Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in charge of Livestock, Dr Hannah Bissiw, who launched the report, explained that despite the efforts to reach out to women in the sector, there was a decreasing trend in numbers of women in agriculture activities…
Moves to Upscale Cowpea Production Underway
A two-day stakeholders meeting for cowpea sector operators aimed at upscaling the crop’s production and its value chain in the three northern regions was held at Nyankpala-Tamale in the Northern Region. The meeting, the ‘Innovation Platform’, discussed challenges associated with the sector and the varieties of cowpea that consumers prefer and those that researchers need to come out with, among other issues associated with expanding cowpea production. It attracted researchers, farmers, agricultural extension agents, processors, inputs dealers, consumers, and marketers drawn from the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions. The meeting formed part implementing the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Cowpea Project being carried out by the ...
80 Cocoa Processing Workers Affected by Temporary Shutdown
About 100 workers at the country’s biggest cocoa processor, Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), have been asked to proceed on their annual leave “until further notice” due to a temporary shutdown of its two cocoa processing plants. The workers are mainly stationed at CPC’s Cocoa House, where raw beans are processed into semi-finished products. Kingsley Owusu, CPC’s local union chairman, confirming the development explained that Cocoa House comprises about 90 percent of the company’s workforce: “That is where we get our main money from”. He said the workers have been asked to go home because CPC is broke and cannot buy beans for processing, even though it is listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. Management has therefore directed that all staff of the company should stay at home as part of their annual leave with effect from January 25, 2016, while the factory remains shut down …
Barclays Schools SMEs on Safe Food Processing
Barclays Ghana, through the African Youth Agripreneurship Programme (AYAP), has organized a two-day training session for small businesses engaged in food processing. The purpose of the programme, according Samuel Baba Adongo, Country Director of Technoserve Ghana, the implementing organization, is to boost the competitive capacity of SMEs who are involved in food processing by producing quality products to meet international standards and also avoid unwittingly producing contaminated foods. “Food safety has become a major issue and we feel that if food processors have to be competitive then they have to produce things that will meet international standards. Therefore, their systems would have to be world class. The only way to do that is go through training in order to help them understand that they have to respect and set up systems that will meet international standards,” Mr. Adongo said …
Private Sector Increases Agric Spending
There is a steady rise in private sector spending in the agricultural value chain to complement central government’s efforts, increasing yields per hectare and creating employment for locals. Organisations like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) have invested US$16million in a five-year Agricultural Value Chain Facility (AVCF) project to enhance agriculture in the country. About 70,000 farmer households in four regions - Brong Ahafo, Tamale, Upper East and Upper West Regions -- have so far benefitted from the initiative. The organisation, through the AVCF project funded by DANIDA, has trained many in the agriculture value chain; leading to employment creation and improvement in standards of living. Mr. Kwesi Ampofo, Country Director for AGRA, told the B&FT that: “Though agriculture is the second-highest foreign exchange earner for the country, it has received less attention over the past years, and this has affected production”….
Egypt to Launch Agricultural Commodities Bourse by Year-end
Egypt plans to launch an agricultural-focused commodities trading exchange, the first of its kind in the Middle East, by the end of 2016, Supplies Minister Khaled Hanafi said on Monday. Egypt announced plans to set up a global commodities centre in 2014, but gave few details at the time. Hanafi said that a feasibility study had been completed and the next step was to draw up regulations and establish the electronic infrastructure to connect farmers with traders. "We're going to set up the first commodities exchange in Egypt and the Middle East," Iman al Mutlaq, chief executive of Sigma Investments, which is involved in the project, said. The bourse would begin with eight commodities -- six agricultural commodities, oil and gold -- and that this small number would help promote high initial volumes, he added…
Patronize our Local Foodstuff – WIAD
Ms. Paulina Addy, Director of the Women in Agricultural Development (WIAD), has called on Ghanaians to patronize our locally grown food stuff. She said the locally grown food are very nutritious and healthy for consumption and consuming them will also help farmers to avoid post-harvest losses. Ms. Addy said this at a stakeholder’s forum organized by the Hunger Alliance of Ghana and the Ghana Coalition of Civil Society for Scaling up Nutrition (GHACSSUN) on the theme: “Food Security and Nutrition.” She said WIAD was working with the stakeholders to add more locally grown foodstuff and crops to the School Feeding Programme to ensure that the children get adequate nutrition from the food ...
Supporting Women in Agriculture - Key to Food Security
Women contribute largely to agriculture by providing labour for planting, weeding, harvesting and processing resulting in 70 per cent of food crop production in the country. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), on the average, women represent 43 per cent of the world's agricultural labour force and 47 per cent of the global fisheries labour force. Apart from labouring on the farm, women carry the foodstuffs, occasionally with babies strapped at their backs. Others sit at the back of articulated vehicles or trucks to transport food from the farmgates in the remotest areas to the marketing centres in the cities… In a country with agriculture as the backbone of its economy, Ghanaian women actually make it happen with their relentless efforts by …
African Cassava Agronomy Initiative to Change the Fortunes of Cassava Farmers
The African Cassava Agronomy Initiative (ACAI) project kicks-off today with plans to improve the livelihoods and incomes of cassava farmers in Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, and DR Congo by researching, and tapping into and implementing best-bet agronomic practices. The project, which is led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) with funding support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will specifically improve cassava yields, cassava root quality, cassava supply to the processing sector, and fertilizer sales, thereby engaging over 100,000 households in Nigeria and Tanzania, and facilitating the engagement of at least 30% women farmers. “The value of benefits from this project in Nigeria and Tanzania is projected to be over 27 million USD. Furthermore, through engagement of households in Ghana, Uganda, and DR Congo and through extra interest generated in the products developed by the project, these figures are expected to increase for at …
Exempt Ghanaian Agriculture Manufacturers From Taxes - Says Richmond Frimpong -Agriculture Journalist
Ghana's agriculture sector which has been the main economic driven force of the country has consistently fallen despite the move by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to use agriculture wealth as a springboard for the economic development of the country. Successive governments have shown assiduity in revamping the sector, hitherto, grappling it with taxes, less incentives, untimely release of working fund and inadequate supply of subsidize inputs. The country produces a variety of crops for both local and international market for local currency and foreign exchange rate in its raw state. The situation has not been helpful to the key actors within the industry both formal and informal. If Ghana had utilizes its abundance resource and raw materials in a more refine way, Ghana could have been alleviated from the poverty it’s battling with as a nation ….
NPP Will Add 500k Metric Tonnes to Cocoa – Bawumia
Cocoa production in Ghana will see a boost of 500,000 metric tonnes under an NPP administration, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the party’s running mate for the 2016 presidential election, has said. He said “the vision of the NPP is to aggressively pursue policies that will see the addition of 500,000 metric tonnes to the current output in 10 years. “I have visited 22 villages in the Amenfi West Constituency, since Sunday morning, interacting with farmers and other constituents on issues of development, especially the all-important cocoa sector.” He, therefore, urged cocoa farmers and all those involved in the cocoa sector to support Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP since it is the party that has demonstrated their capacity to grow the cocoa sector with well-thought-out policies. Speaking at Brekum, a cocoa-growing community in the Amenfi West Constituency, during a two-day tour of the constituency, Dr Bawumia recalled the strides the cocoa sector made the ….
Research Institute Holds Training Programme for Farmers
The Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute (BNARI) of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), has a held a day’s training programme for 40 farmers in organic farming. Participants include GAEC Farmers Association, mango and pineapple growers from the Greater Accra and Eastern Regions. It was organized by BNARI in collaboration with GAEC Technology Transfer and Marketing Centre to educate the farmers on the use of organic fertilizer or compost in organic farming. The workshop was on the theme: “Nutrient recovery from solid waste management for agriculture soil amendment.” Professor Kenneth Ellis Danso, Director of BNARI, commended the nation’s farmers for the good work they have being doing. He explained that the workshop was to equip the farmers do their work well; so as to continue producing healthy food for the nation. He said BNARI has being using waste products to manufacture organic fertilizers; which has many benefits…
FAGRO Secretariat Unveils Action Plan for 2016
The National Food and Agric Show (FAGRO) Secretariat, has released events labelled as “action-packed” to guide its 2016 food and agriculture demonstration, aimed at repositioning Ghana’s agricultural sector to boost food security and slash poverty. Officials at the secretariat say the fully-packed activities underline the secretariat’s unflinching commitment to make a compelling statement for Ghana to focus on agriculture as the pathfinder to sustainable development and food security. “We have a very busy 2016 and we are convinced that the agricultural sector deserves even more than the attention we are dedicating,” Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, FAGRO Secretariat General Manager said in a media interaction in Accra. “When agricultural takes it pride of place, Ghana’s developmental agenda will be greatly stepped up and the Secretariat is committed to the successfully roll out all these events this year as our contribution to making the sector attractive to the rest of the population,” she added …
FAO Supports Government to Fight Avian Influenza
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has signed a Technical Cooperation Agreement with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture towards controlling and eliminating the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Ghana. The technical assistance is aimed at strengthening the country's capacity to control and prevent further spread of the disease, hence contain it at its source and better manage the risk factor. Dr Abebe Haile Gabriel, Deputy FAO's Regional Representative for Africa and FAO Representative to Ghana speaking at the signing ceremony in Accra said the agreement was under the organisation's technical co-operation programme worth 413, 000 dollars. He said the support was an emergency assistance to control the H5N1 outbreaks and mitigate risks for virus spread. The technical support would focus on capacity strengthening interventions particularly on improving veterinary service laboratory, train poultry producers, traders and other stakeholders on disease recognition, bio-security and best practices and facilitate cross boarder consultations …
Lack of Cooperation Stalls Commodity Exchange Agenda
The country is likely to miss its June 2016 deadline of starting the commodity exchange market due to the lack of support from some stakeholders, the Project Coordinator, Mr. Robert Dowuono Owoo, has said. He said some of the potential actors within the commodity exchange market had failed to give their full backing to the project because they perceived it as a threat to their businesses. “Some of them have been in this business for a long time and they see the coming into being of the exchange as a competition to their businesses. They think the exchange is going to engage in the buying and selling of agricultural products,” he stated. He said the project was aimed at creating a platform for them to improve their businesses and not to compete with them, and, therefore, urged them to give it their full support …
LEAP’s GH¢50 Million Budget Inadequate: ISODEC
The Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) has said the GH¢50 million budgeted for the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) initiative in 2016 is far below what is needed to cover extreme poor households in Ghana. Although allocation to the programme increased by 31.6 per cent in 2016 to GH¢50m, ISODEC analysis showed that about GH¢88 million is needed to cater for beneficiaries of the programme, a Policy Analyst at ISODEC, Mrs. Charlotte Esenam Afudego told GRAPHIC BUSINESS. “The 2016 Budget did not provide detailed information on budgetary allocations to each of the social protection programmes (SPPs). To enable transparency and effective monitoring, future budgets should clearly provide detailed information on budgetary allocations to each programme,” she said ...
Reports/Articles
Changes in Ghanaian Farming Systems: Stagnation or a Quiet Transformation?
Nazaire Houssou, Michael Johnson, Shashidhara Kolavalli, Collins Asante-Addo
This research was designed to understand better the patterns of agricultural intensification and transformation occurring in Africa South of the Sahara using the Ghanaian case. The paper examines changes in farming systems and the role of various endogenous and exogenous factors in driving the conversion of arable lands to agricultural uses in four villages within two agro ecologically distinct zones of Ghana: the Guinea Savannah and Transition zones. Using essentially historical narratives and landcover maps supplemented with quantitative data at regional levels, the research shows that farming has intensified in the villages, while farmers have increased their farm size in response to factors such as population growth, market access, and changing rural lifestyle. The overall trend suggests a gradual move toward intensification through increasing use of labor-saving technologies rather than land-saving inputs—a pattern that contrasts with Asia’s path to its Green Revolution. The findings in this paper provide evidence of the dynamism occurring in African farming systems; hence, they point toward a departure from stagnation narratives that have come to prevail in the …
Towards a Sustainable Soil Fertility Strategy in Ghana
Jayne, Thomas, et al
Most efforts to raise fertilizer use in SSA over the past decade have focused on fertilizer subsidies and targeted credit programmes with hopes that these programmes could later be withdrawn once the profitability of fertilizer use has been made clear to adopting farmers and once they have become sufficiently capitalized to be able to afford fertilizer on their own. This line of reasoning under-emphasizes the evidence that many smallholder farmers obtain very low crop response rates to inorganic fertilizer application and hence cannot use it profitably at full market prices. A central hypothesis of this study is that Ghanaian farmers will demand increasing quantities of fertilizer when they can utilize it more profitably, and that doing so will require improved agronomic and soil management practices that enable farmers to achieve higher crop response rates to fertilizer application …
An Analysis of Household Farm Investment Decisions Under Varying Land Tenure Arrangements in Ghana
M Ayamga, RWN Yeboah, SN Ayambila - … of Agriculture and Rural Development in …, 2016
Land tenure insecurity is widely perceived as a disincentive for long-term land improvement investment hence the objective of this paper is to evaluate how tenure (in)security associated with different land use arrangements in Ghana influenced households’ plot level investment decisions and choices. The paper uses data from the Farmer-Based Organisations (FBO) survey. The FBO survey collected information from 2,928 households across three ecological zones of Ghana using multi-staged cluster sampling. Probit and Tobit models tested the effects of land tenancy and ownership arrangements on households’ investment behaviour while controlling other factors. It was found that marginal farm size was inversely related to tenure insecurity while tenure insecurity correlate positively with value of farm land and not farm size. Individual ownership and documentation of land significantly reduced the probability of households losing uncultivated lands. Individual land ownership increased both …
Technical Efficiency of Bambara Groundnut Production in Northern Ghana
W Adzawla, SA Donkoh, G Nyarko, P O'Reilly… - UDS International Journal of …, 2015
Achieving food security under climate change is one of the greatest concerns of governments in developing countries. Due to favourable agronomic characteristics such as drought tolerance and an ability to produce a crop on less fertile soils, a number of underutilised crops, such as bambara groundnut offer potentials to address food insecurity problems in areas impacted by climate change. While efficiency studies have gained popularity in relation to many food crops, very little research has been carried out on the technical efficiency of bambara groundnut production. This study estimated a Translog stochastic frontier to determine the factors that influenced farmers’ technical efficiency in the 2013 cropping season in Northern Ghana. It involved 120 farmers selected through a multi-stage sampling technique. Technical efficiency scores ranged from 27% to 97% with a mean of 83%. The significant positive determinants of output and efficiency were farm size, …
Socioeconomic Determinants of Livestock Production Technology Adoption in Northern Ghana
IGK Ansah, D Eib, R Amoako - 2015
The Northern region of Ghana hosts the largest number of livestock producers compared to the other regions, but output is still low despite the introduction of improved technologies which have the potential to increase livestock yields when adopted and provide better livelihoods to participating households. Consequently, adoption of improved technologies has been low, slow and uncertain. This study set out to examine factors that influence the adoption of livestock production technologies. One hundred and fifty (150) livestock farmers were randomly sampled from six communities in three districts of the region. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and a logit regression model. The results showed that the low level of awareness of livestock production technologies have contributed to the low adoption by farmers. The logit regression results disclosed that the likelihood to adopt livestock production technology was significantly explained for 56% by extension contact,…
Perceptions of Governance and Social Capital in Ghana’s Cocoa Industry
Governance and social capital are significant components in the management and operation of agricultural value chains. We explore these related concepts by examining the regulator (COCOBOD) farmer dyad within the (Ghanaian) cocoa value chain, using unique survey and interview data from 300 Ghanaian cocoa farmers. Utilising this data, we construct multi-scalar and multi-dimensional measures of both governance and social capital, before exploring this dyad using multivariate analysis. Alongside our interview data, our results confirm a positive relationship existing between perceptions of good governance and social capital, although governance perceptions differ across the different cocoa growing regions. Our results point towards industry bodies as conduits for facilitating wider stakeholder participation, enhancing social capital and shared values, and fostering consensus within (agricultural) value chains and socio-economic development ...
The Impact of Farm Forestry on Poverty Alleviation and Food Security in Uganda
I Kiyingi, A Edriss, M Phiri, M Buyinza, H Agaba - Journal of Sustainable Development, 2016
To address the problem of high rural poverty and food insecurity, government and international donors have funded on-farm plantation forestry projects as one of the tools for improving the welfare of rural communities. In the wake of climate change, on-farm plantation forestry has evolved to include carbon forestry, with the dual purpose of sequestering carbon and improving rural livelihoods. However, there is a dearth of empirical evidence regarding whether and under what conditions on-farm plantation forestry can deliver favorable livelihood outcomes. Therefore, Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and endogenous switching regression models were used to estimate the average treatment effects of adopting eucalyptus and carbon forestry woodlots (under the planvivo system) on consumption expenditure per adult equivalent and daily calorie acquisition per adult equivalent. PSM and switching regression results consistently indicated that adoption of eucalyptus …
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