Below are some current developments on agriculture in Africa:
Media Reports
Time for Agric Insurance - Minister
The Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Dr Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan has admitted that an institutionalised insurance agriculture scheme will go a long way to improve the agric sector and make it attractive to investors. Dr. Alhassan said it was about time insurance companies designed policies for the agric sector as the country is experiencing less than 30 percent of rainfall than it did a decade ago, which according to him was due to the effects of climate change. He added that the risks associated with agriculture were high for farmers hence the need for insurers to seriously consider insurance packages for the agric sector. His comments followed an earlier statement by the Member of Parliament for Nsawam-Adoagyiri constituency, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, who proposed an amendment to the Insurance Act, 2006 to include insurance for agriculture, especially for farmers and their farm produce. Mr. Annoh Dompreh argued: “Without agriculture, roads wouldn’t have been built, without agriculture hospitals, schools, good drinking water wouldn’t have been there”. “Mr. Speaker, how do you sustain agriculture moving or going forward? One area is agricultural insurance or farmers’ insurance.”…
Pineapple Business Thrives, Improving Communities and Inspiring Workers
A World Bank-supported project has helped Gold Coast Fruits become the fourth-largest pineapple exporter in Ghana Funds from the project paid for a consultant from Costa Rica to train farmers in fertiliser use, weeds maintenance, chemical application and drainage systems. The company’s success has had a positive impact on its workers and their communities through its support of social, environmental and economic development projects. For nearly eight years, farmers at the Gold Coast Fruits pineapple farm would plant row after row of pineapple plantlets across nearly 400 hectares of land, manually weed and fertilise them every three weeks, and wait. When it came time to harvest the pineapples more than a year later, instead of the plump, juicy, sweet fruit they expected, the farmers found crops of diseased plants; pineapples with high water levels, low sugar content or high acidity; and fruit that was too small to sell. At most, the farm would lose 40% of its crop. “During the rainy season, if you lose just an inch of top soil, then you lose the majority of the nutrients,” said Richard Kudjonu, manager of fair trade education at the farm. “The pineapples will not be as heavy and the quality won’t be as great in terms of taste and physical appearance. What you put in is what you get out.”…
FDA Develops GH¢22m Strategic Plan on National Food Safety
The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has developed a five-year strategic plan to help implement the National Food Safety policy adopted, last year, towards harmonising food safety activities for improved public health. About GH¢22 million has been earmarked for the implementation of the action plan, which outlines what the policy seeks to achieve and how it would be done over the period. “Operationalising the policy will protect public health and safety, empower food industry actors, open access to international market and provide incentives to tourism,” the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, Mr. John Odame-Darkwah, said on Thursday, at a workshop. He said the policy described priority interventions, responsible agencies, budgetary requirements and clearly defined milestones, which aimed to integrate fragmented roles of agencies in order to optimise national resources. Major actors in the food industry, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Agricultural Organisation officials, attended the sensitisation and awareness creation event …
Shea Dealers Receive Training
Shea Network Ghana (SNG), a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), has trained about 17,000 women from 34 districts in the three regions of the North in the business of shea processing so they can improve the quality of production. The training was to build the capacity of actors in the shea sector and enhance production of quality shea butter to meet international standards. The shea sector has potential to bridge the development gap between north and south, hence the need for enhancing the sector to create more wealth and jobs for the youth, organisers of the training course said. Beneficiaries of the training included shea-pickers, processors, value chain actors as well as stakeholders engaged in the shea business at Tamale. The occasion was also used to launch the 2016 shea quality and shea season campaign. The campaign is geared toward supporting rural women engaged in shea processing and producing quality nuts to meet demands of the competitive global market. A market-linkage component of the campaign is aimed at ensuring the processors produce quality products to attract more investors into the shea industry. The target is to increase the premium price of shea products from 20 percent achieved in 2015 to 30 percent in 2016. The women were taken through the process of selecting and par-boiling to ensure quality shea products…
Cassava Prices Drop by 3 Percent – Esoko
The price of cassava recorded the second highest drop in price for the second week in June. Figures released by Esoko Ghana showed that the price of the commodity declined by three percent. Three to four tubers of cassava are now selling at 7 cedis 80 pesewas compared to the 8 cedis price for the same quantity last week. Tomato, whose price dropped for the second consecutive week in June,recorded the highest drop in price. A medium size tin of the produce is now selling at 12 cedis 30 pesewas from the 12 cedis 90 pesewas. The prices of gari and groundnut also dropped 2 percent each to sell at 6 cedis 30 pesewas and 14 cedis per medium size tin respectively. Meanwhile Esoko reports that the prices of local rice and yam increased by 3 percent each. Both closed the week at 7 cedis 60 pesewas and 7 cedis per medium size tin and medium size tuber respectively. Maize and millet also gained by a percentage point. On the various markets, however a medium size tomato tin full gained 17 percent in Bawku to close the week at 5 cedis 60 pesewas. The commodity however made some loss in Accra, Kumasi and Techiman…
Making Ghana Net Rice Exporter …2020 Looms Large
Government has said it is poised to cut the rice import bill of about US$600million and make the country net exporter by 2020, and there is no time to waste. When he visited Scotland in March, President Mahama told parliamentarians there that “We’ve taken rice from the production of 30 to 60% as I speak and so gradually we’re reducing rice import to Ghana”. Current production is said to hover around 290,000metric tonnes whilst, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Ghanaians, in 2014, consumed a total of 754,698 metric tonnes of rice, with imports making up 52 per cent. Smuggling was not accounted for. The USDA forecasted in January 2015 that between October 2014 and September 2015, Ghana would import 600,000 metric tonnes of rice to augment the country’s needs. A number of challenges stand in the way of the country’s ambitious attempt at reversing the over-importation of a commodity that has overtaken other traditional meals as a staple, especially in urban areas. The Food and Agriculture Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Limuna argues that efforts at increasing local rice production to curb over-reliance on importation of the commodity is being undermined by lack of adequate infrastructure specifically rice processing mills in rice producing communities of the country…
Rice Farmers at Tono Cry for Combine Harvesters
About four thousand metric tonnes of rice ready for harvesting at the Tono Irrigation site at Navrongo in the Upper East Region is likely to go waste as a result of the lack of combine harvester machines. In all, 2000 farmers in the area who used to do tomato farming in the dry season, diversified their activity to rice cultivation this year, due to lack of market for the tomatoes they used to produce. All together they cultivated about 1,000 hectares of rice and have got a good yield of about 4,000 metric tonnes which is ripe and ready for harvesting but there are no combined harvesters to do the work. The smallholder farmers at the scheme site used to cultivate small plots which they harvested manually, but went in for a larger acreage, as they were convinced the rice harvest would be good this year and given the assurance that they would get machines to harvest the crop if they produced on a larger scale. Moreover, as the rains have now set in, there is the likelihood that the ripe rice on the farms will get destroyed. The desperate farmers besieged the residence of the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Navrongo Central Constituency, Mr. Mark Woyongo, to plead with him to help them get the machines to harvest their produce…
Endemic Poverty in Upper West is a Reflection of Poor Investment
Mohammed Muniru Lemuna, Minister of Agriculture has stated that the high poverty levels in the Upper West Region is a reflection of lack of investment in the agriculture sector. He said the region has very good educational institutions and produced some of the best engineers, lawyers, administrators and doctors in the country. “So one can safely draw the conclusion that the region is poor because agriculture has not received the needed investment and attention as given to education and health”, he emphasised. Mr. Lemuna stated this while addressing participants at the Ghana Agricultural Sector Investment Promotion Programme (GASIP) Regional Sensitisation forum in Wa. “Agriculture is the main driver of the economy of Ghana as a whole and this region in particular,” he noted. Mr. Lemuna said there is no argument that high performance of the agriculture sector would benefit health and education as food would be available to reduce malnutrition. “So it is only obvious that as we remove schools under trees and construct clinics, we should also at least provide logistics for the agricultural staff to do their work.” Mr. Lemuna gave the assurance that government had taken steps to address many of the challenges facing farmers…
Nestle Inaugurates Major Water Recycle Plant
Nestle Ghana has inaugurated a $3.4 million Water Recycle Plant towards ensuring the use of sustainable natural resources and to save the Tema water bodies from pollution, as part of activities commemorating the World Environment Day. The 3.5 million (Swiss Franc) facility is an Ultra Filtration-Reverse Osmosis system, at the Tema Factory, would improve the quality of waste water, enable the reuse of water by 30 per cent and lower the total water consumption of the factory by 10 per cent. “Join the Race to Green Ghana and Protect Wildlife” is the national theme for this year’s World Environment, celebrated on June 5. The day seeks to remind the World’s citizens of their responsibility towards the environment and afford them the opportunity to consolidate the gains made; and reflect on what actions are needed to safeguard the environment. President John Mahama commended Nestle for the initiative and urged other industry players to emulate Nestlé’s environmental consciousness. They should, therefore, invest in the conservation of renewable energy, water management and limit greenhouse gas emissions. The President, whose speech was read by Mr. Collins Oppong Fosu, a Minister of State at the Presidency, stated: “One of the major challenges of our times is Climate Change and it is a threatening environmental issue of our times…
Watermelon Glut - Good for Consumers, Bad for the Farmers
It is 11 a.m. on a cloudy day in June when the sun and cloud are in a turf war for the sky but on his farm at Ada, Joshua Kutsoafo, is fighting a battle of survival with a watermelon glut that has crashed prices. The 35-year-old farmer is among hundreds of others who hope to cash in on last year’s windfall for farmers who cultivated the ovoid fruit, but are now left counting either their loses or meagre profits. “This is the worst season for us ever since I started cultivating watermelon 15 years ago. Everybody is growing watermelon,” he said with his hands folded across his chest and his eyes glued to the fruits piling before him as the harvest on his family’s farm continues. Such has been the bumper harvest that some traders on the Sege-Sogakope stretch of the Accra-Aflao road abandoned their produce, leaving it to rot because of an excess supply and few demand. In the midst of plenty, the people benefiting most are middlemen from big commercial centres including Accra, Tema and Aflao who are milking the farmers and making profit in the cities. Across Mr. Kutsoafo’s farm, Mr Tettey Dayitey, another farmer and his wife are busily marking the fruit before carting it to the roadside. This is where the grading begins. The huge green ones attract the premium price but the deep green ones, even when they are small are expensive because they are high in demand…
Reports/Articles
Malnutrition and associated factors in children: a comparative study between public and private schools in Hohoe Municipality, Ghana
F Agbozo, P Atito, A Abubakari - BMC Nutrition, 2016
Due to vulnerabilities resulting from disparities in socio-economic status (SES), most nutrition and health interventions are targeted at children in public schools. This study was conducted to investigate the determinants of malnutrition among pupils attending public and private schools in the Hohoe municipality, Ghana. School-based cross-sectional survey, which used a multi-stage random sampling technique to select 633 pupils, aged 3–12 years enrolled in 14 public and seven private schools. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews using semi-structured questionnaire. Type of school attended was used as proxy of SES of the pupils. Weight, height and mid upper-arm circumference were measured and used to generate underweight, stunting, thinness and obesity levels using WHO Antroplus and STATA 12.1. Mutually adjusted simple and multinomial logistic regressions were performed to determine associations between explanatory and dependent variables…
Perceived Effect of Climate Change on Cocoa Production in South Western Nigeria
MO Raufu, D Kibirige, AS Singh
The study examines the perceived effect of climate change on cocoa production in South Western Nigeria. Information collected from 270 respondents residing in Ondo, Osun and Oyo states of Nigeria using well-structure questionnaires forms the primary data used in the analysis. Descriptive statistics, weighted means score and multiple regression analysis were the analytical techniques used. The result shows that more than 70 percent of the respondents were male, majority of them were 50years of age and 57.4 percent had no formal education. The major means of awareness about climate change are radio and co-farmers in Ondo State and Osun State while its radio and television in Oyo State. Livestock farming systems, weeding options, mixed cropping, remover of chupons, and pruning of old cocoa trees are the main preventive strategies adopted by farmers in the states under study. Applications of pesticides on cocoa and determining damage threshold for use of insecticides are part of the mitigating strategies used by the farmers in the study area. The inferential statistics shows that farmers’ age, level of education, extension services, farming experience, farm and family size are significantly related to the farmers’ perceived effect of climate change on cocoa production in the three States under study…
Bringing Gender Analysis and Resilience Analysis Together in Small Scale Fisheries Research: Challenges and Opportunities
N Kawarazuka, C Locke, C McDougall, P Kantor… - 2016
The widely-accepted policy imperative to enhance gender equity means that the demand for gender analysis is now increasingly orthodox in natural resource programming, including that for small-scale fisheries. Whilst the analysis of social-ecological resilience has made valuable contributions to integrating social dimensions into research and policy-making on natural resource management, it has so far demonstrated limited success in effectively integrating considerations of gender equity. This paper reviews the challenges in and opportunities for bringing a gender analysis together with an analysis of social-ecological resilience in the context of policy-orientated small-scale fisheries research. We argue that gender analysis and the analysis of social-ecological resilience have divergent epistemological and methodological underpinnings and we show how these have shaped the progress in social-ecological resilience analysis in addressing gender, as well as the progress of gender analysis in addressing social-ecological resilience We conclude that rather than searching for a single unifying framework for gender and resilience analysis, it will be more effective to pursue a plural solution in which closer engagement is fostered between gender analysis and resilience analysis whilst preserving the strengths of each approach…
Determinants of Food Security Status of Maize-Based Farming Households in Southern Guinea Savannah Area of Oyo State, Nigeria.
OA Obayelu, OA Onasanya - … Journal of Agriculture-Food Science and Technology, 2016
Nigeria is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa with insufficient food and high food import bill, which have debilitating effects on the productive capacity of the citizens. Maize is the most important cereal after rice and its production contributes immensely to food availability on the tables of many Nigerians. This study examined the contribution of maize production to household food security status of rural maize-farming households in the southern guinea savannah of Oyo state, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 200 farm households and the data were analysed using descriptive statistics, recommended daily calorie requirement (RDCR) approach, Logit model. Results showed that about three-quarters of the households were food secure and were able to meet the recommended calorie intake of 2260Kcal per capita per day. The shortfall index (P) which measures the extent of deviation from the food security line, indicated that the food secure households exceeded the RDCR by 65%, while the food insecure households fell short of the RDCR by 31%. The logit model showed that maize output, gender, primary occupation of the farmer, farm size and farming experience had a positive influence on food security status while age had a negative influence on the food security status of maize-based farming households in the Southern Guinea Savannah …
* The GSSP News Digest just summarizes news that is reported in the press. Any errors of fact or omission are not IFPRI’s responsibility*