Below are some current developments on agriculture in Africa:
ADRA Trains 722 Volunteer Extension Officers
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency Ghana (ADRA) has trained about 722 volunteer extension farmers, adding to the few in the country to assist farmers improve on their production. ADRA said it will train more extension officers to enhance the capacity of farmers to produce quality crops that meet the market’s demand. The northern sector produces the majority of the country’s food-stuff, but lacks extension officers to supervise agricultural practices as well as assist farmers identify the right time to cultivate particular crops that will yield well to improve their daily income. These extension officers will also assist farmers with application of fertiliser on their crops. The project is dubbed ‘The Volunteer Extension Workers Programme’, and is expected to facilitate agricultural extension service delivery in areas where professionally trained extension workers are scarce. The three-year project is being implemented by ADRA-Ghana under the Integrated Agricultural…
Benin and IFAD Work Together to Boost Food Security and Create Jobs for Young People
The Republic of Benin and the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) signed an agreement on Monday to finance the Market Gardening Development Support Project (PADMAR), an initiative that will create some 3,000 new jobs, particularly for young women and men, and improve food and nutrition security in 27 municipalities of seven departments in southern Benin (Atlantic, Couffo, Littoral, Mono, Ouémé, Plateau and Zou). The total project investment is US $49.2 million, which includes a $23.5 million IFAD loan, $0.5 million grant and an additional grant of $4.5 million from the IFAD Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) Trust Fund. The government of Benin will contribute $4.8 million while the local participants will provide an additional $3.9 million. The government of Benin is seeking cofinancing of $12 million from other donors to make up the remainder…
Sinapi Aba Earmarks GH¢14m Credit Facility to Northern Farmers
Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans (SASL) has step up its supports in the agriculture sector with a credit facility of GH¢14million to enhance its position this year. About 14,000 farmers are expected to access the funds of which majority will go into the purchase of equipment and to farmers in the rural areas who find it difficult accessing finance. The objective for the support is in line with the financial firm’s goal to make tractors easily accessible to farmers for ploughing during the cropping season. The support is made possible through linking of the farmers to Sinapi Aba by ADRA Ghana after the latter has taken the farmers through business and entrepreneurial skills training. Alfred Bukari, Agricultural Programmes Coordinator of Sinapi Aba, responsible for the northern sector, said the climate change last year affected many of the activities of the farmers which made them produce less …
Attracting Youth into Cocoa Cultivation
Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has set aside an amount of US$150,000 for rehabilitating cocoa roads to improve the road network in cocoa-growing communities for the 2015/16 crop season, improving the quality of life and motivating the youth to stay in these communities and engage in cocoa farming. Concerns have been raised about the increasing number of cocoa farmers growing old, as this could affect the country’s main cash-crop’s production. Research has confirmed that most cocoa farmers are aging; with an average cocoa farmer attaining 55 years, the situation has implications for sustaining cocoa production since they cannot channel sufficient energies and resources into production. This has generated emergency drastic interventions aimed at encouraging more youth to venture into cocoa farming and become the next generation of farmers to sustain cocoa production….
Decouple Shea from COCOBOD – Advocate
Zakaria Iddi, the National Coordinator of Shea Network Ghana (SNG), a civil society organisation, has called on government to decouple the shea sector and its entire value chain from the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in order to give it the attention it deserves and needs for growth. This, he said, will help fast-track issues to enhance the sector, which has seen its fortunes dwindle. According to Mr. Iddi, shea-nuts have the potential to address poverty in the North, and it is high time governments stopped paying lip-service to the sector and start to act by giving it the needed attention to grow like the cocoa sector. The industry, he stressed, has engaged over 900,000 people, mainly women: “The sector can engage still more if government heeds the call of stakeholders to act on separating the sector from COCOBOD. “Cocoa and shea are quite different; they need different agencies and strategies to deal with their issues. Putting shea under Ghana Cocoa Board makes the sector retrogress,” he stated….
COCOBOD to Start Repayment of Loan
The first repayment of the US$1.8 billion cocoa syndicated loan will be made this month, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Stephen Kwabena Opuni, has said. The first tranche of the repayment, valued at US$285 million, is ready for transfer to the group of 25 banks that raised the funds for the board, Dr Opuni added. He explained that the money would be repaid in seven instalments over a seven-month period. The CEO said that when management of COCOBOD and officials of GZ Bank, one of the contributors of the loan, visited some cocoa communities in the Eastern Region. The arrangement means that the board would finish paying up the loan by August this year, two months into the end of the 2015/2016 cocoa season…
KNUST Develops Cassava Harvester
The Agricultural Engineering Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST) has developed a special cassava harvester designed to enhance the mechanisation of root and tuber crops cultivation, particularly cassava and yam. The device ‘Tek Mechanical Cassava Harvester’ (TEK-MCH) has been engineered to address the difficulty in commercially harvesting root and tuber crops. Manual harvesting reflects drudgery and time consumption, especially in the dry seasons, and has been the bane of commercial production for these crops. The development and adoption of the 300kg mass and one metre wide machine with slatted conical mould-board is one solution proposed to unlock the huge cassava potential as food and for industrial use: the TEK-MCH can harvest a hectare within a maximum of two hours …
Ghana Agriculture Agency Unveils Busy Calendar | West Africa
Ghana's leading agriculture society has unveiled its 2016 calendar that promises an aggressive marketing of the country's agriculture industry, which has been on a decline due to poor crop production. The Ghana Food and Agriculture Show (FAGRO) on Monday said its activities this year would be aimed at repositioning the country's agriculture industry, which registered a mere 0.04 percent growth rate in 2015. According to government projections, the industry had been expected to grow by 3.6 percent but this was blighted by a fall in crop production. FARGO said it wanted to ensure that Ghana focused on agriculture to drive sustainable development and ensure food security…
Accra Hosts Food for All Ghana Awards and Exhibition
UNICEF Ghana last year revealed that 1out of every 4 child in most regions of Ghana goes to bed hungry. The UN SDG’s Goal 2 and 12 adopted in 2015 affords us the opportunity to partner and work together in addressing the inefficiencies within our food supply chain, network and work towards creating sustainable means of nutrition for all. Government ministries, top level officials, farmers, supermarkets, hospitality companies and stakeholders within Ghana’s food supply system and international industry leaders will come together in Accra, Ghana for the 1st Food for All Ghana conference themed: “SDG 2&12 Focus on creating sustainable means of nutrition within our food supply chain”. Food Wastage occurs across all segments of the food supply chain and is often the result of the ….
New US Ambassador Jackson presents letter of credence to President Mahama
The new US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert P. Jackson, has presented his credentials to President John Mahama and officially taken up duties as ambassador. Speaking from the ceremony at Flagstaff House on February 3, Ambassador Jackson was reported to have thanked President Mahama for the warm welcome to Ghana and highlighted the US/Ghanaian partnership in four key areas – democracy, prosperity, security and health – and expressed the US’s commitment to deepening that partnership further. “We believe, as the president of the United States said, that our successes are mutually tied and our partnership is indispensable.” “In looking at prosperity and economic growth, it’s clear that addressing the energy issues through Power Africa and the Millennium Challenge….
Reports/Article
Agricultural Mechanization and South-south Knowledge Exchange: What can Ghanaian and Nigerian Policymakers Learn from Bangladesh’s Experience?
Aboagye Patrick Ohene; Abubakar Abdullahi Garba; et al
Bangladesh recently has experienced fast growth in agricultural mechanization. Nationally, the share of area cultivated by tractors and power tillers increased from 30 percent in the mid-1990s to 95 percent in 2015, with power tillers being used on three-quarters of the mechanically cultivated area. Moreover, agricultural machinery is not only used on large farms in Bangladesh, but has spread among smallholder farmers that own an average of 0.5 hectares (ha) of cropland. Supply of machinery for this rapid growth of mechanization has been based primarily on imports, as the capacity for local manufacturing of agricultural machinery is still limited …
Strengthening Capacity for Agribusiness Development and Management in Sub-Saharan Africa
Babu, Suresh Chandra; Manvatkar, Rupak; Kolavalli, Shashidhara;
In sub-Saharan Africa, agribusiness has a major role to play in the transformation of the agricultural sector. The demand for high-value food products is increasing, creating an opportunity for the production and export of these goods. To capture the benefits of this trend and capitalize on this for long-term agricultural growth, the capacity for agribusiness must be strengthened at all levels. To effectively build the necessary capacities, the skills built by agribusiness education and training must correspond to the needs of the agribusiness sector. This article examines what capacities are needed for agribusiness development and management in sub-Saharan Africa at the individual, organization, and policy process levels. By reviewing the current agribusiness education offerings, this article identifies capacity gaps that must be filled for agribusiness development and wider agricultural transformation….
Drivers of Market Participation Decisions among Small-scale Farmers in Yam Growing Areas of Nigeria and Ghana
DB Mignouna, T Abdoulaye, A Alene, AA Akinola… - 2015
Participation in agricultural markets could be the main weapon against hunger to lift millions of poor farmers out of poverty traps. Unfortunately, most of the potential beneficiaries are constrained by several factors in their quest to participate in the yam market. This study, thus, clarified the underpinning drivers of market participation among small-scale farmers in yam belt of West Africa. Using a multistage random sample of 1400 households, the study tests the hypothesis that factors affecting farmers’ decision to participate are not necessarily the same as those affecting the extent of participation. Non-price constraints played a significant role in determining decisions on market participation. Policies that reduce transactions costs and induce farmers to commercialize could…
Implications of Land Tenure Security on Sustainable Land Use in Informal Settlements in Nairobi
PO Olale - 2015
The nature of property rights society vests in individuals or groups and the manner in which those rights are exercised through a land tenure system have implications for the sustainable use of land. Using Kosovo and Kambi Moto informal settlements in Nairobi as case studies, the researcher investigated whether improving land tenure security would lead to sustainable land use and eventual improvement of the environment in informal settlements. In this study, the researcher outlines the fact that informal settlements have become common phenomena in urban areas in developing countries and faced by a myriad of challenges. The findings presented in the study show that with the prevailing insecure tenure, urban dwellers in the informal settlements lack incentives to engage in any meaningful sustainable land use …
Government Budgetary Allocation and Its Effect on Agricultural Growth
AD Omar - 2015
Agriculture remains the pillar of the Kenya’s economy since independence. Literature points out existence of high correlation between agricultural growth and economic growth. The country has implemented several development plans with each identifying agricultural sector as among the important sectors that can lead to realization of set development goals. Agriculture in the country has experienced robust growth rates in the 1960s and 1970s to its dwindling growth in the 1980s and 1990s. However, the sector registered mixed performance from the year 2000 to date. A number of initiatives have been pursued with an aim of improving the productivity of agricultural sector and the economy as a whole. There is need to establish appropriate policies that should be implemented to enable sustainable increase in the agricultural output ….
Gender Productivity Differentials among Smallholder Farmers in Africa: A Cross-country Comparison
AO Salami - 2016
This article investigates gender inequality in agricultural productivity, highlights its key determinants, and approximates the potential production, consumption, and poverty gains from reducing or closing the gender productivity gap. The analysis is performed on the basis of representative household survey datasets recently collected in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. In these countries, agriculture remains the mainstay of the economy and understanding the extent and sources of gender productivity gaps is crucial for building policy interventions and empowering women. Our econometric approach consists initially in estimating a model of agricultural productivity to uncover the impact of gender of the land manager. Then, mean and quantile-based decomposition approaches are applied to each country separately to underscore the sources of gender differences in agriculture …
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