Declining agricultural land, particularly for smallholder farmers

Photo credit: SciDevNet

Copyright: Alfredo Caliz/Panos

Urbanisation reducing Ghanaian smallholders’ lands

by Samuel Hinneh

“About two years ago, I went to my farm only to meet two people with documents to the effect that they have acquired my farmland for building [a house].” – Ghanaian smallholder, Report

Speed read

• Ghana’s urban areas are increasing by 3.5 per cent a year, says a new report
• It finds declining agricultural land particularly for smallholder farmers in Ghana
• Climate change and attitudes of traditional leaders are to blame, experts say

 

Fertile farmlands are rapidly declining in Ghana due to pressure from population growth and urbanisation, threatening rural livelihoods and food security, according to a new report.

The report says Ghana’s urban areas are expanding at a rate of 3.5 per cent annually as a result of a rising population.

The report based on a study conducted by researchers at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana was released last month (18 August) in Accra at a workshop.

According to the report, researchers selected 140 respondents in southern Ghana and 150 respondents in northern Ghana and examined the trends, drivers and players of changing land access in rural areas through household surveys, interviews and focus group discussions.
Read the full article: SciDevNet

Better water management practices in Ghana

 

Improving water productivity in crop-livestock farming systems in northern Ghana

by JONATHAN ODHONG

Smallholder farmers in northern Ghana face a number of water-related challenges. Soil fertility is inherently low and in decline due to continuous cropping. Erratic rainfall patterns result in alternating floods and droughts, and there are limited small-scale irrigation technologies to bridge farmer family income and food security during 6-monthly dry season.

Some of these challenges could be addressed through better water management practices. For example, rainwater harvesting or sourcing groundwater through shallow wells for supplementary irrigation during the rainy season. This enables farmers in northern Ghana to increase the productivity of their crop and livestock farming systems. They can grow vegetables in the dry-season when they are in strong demand and the higher prices will provide important income for better livelihoods during the dry season.

Read the full text: Africa Rising

Indigenous knowledge, food security and sovereignty of the African farmer

Photo credit: Ghana Crusader

Substantial grain yields have been recorded by small holder farmers who have adopted the Zai Technology Farming in the Upper East Region.

‘Indigenous Knowledge of African farmers be enhanced’

Source: GNA

Dr Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, the Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in charge of Crops, on Wednesday reiterated the need for indigenous knowledge of the African farmer to be enhanced, to achieve food security and sovereignty.

He said Africa had the needed trained human resources in scientific research to contribute to that knowledge or technology development.

Dr Alhassan, who was speaking at the opening of the Fourth Planning and General Meeting of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) in Accra, said “the era of despair, timidity and sometimes outright cynicism of African agriculture must give way to confidence, mutual trust and co-operation among stakeholders.”

AFSA is a Pan-African platform of 21 networks and farmer organisations championing small African Family Farming/Production Systems based on agro-ecological and indigenous approaches that sustain food sovereignty and the livelihoods of communities.

The three-day meeting is on the theme: “Building on International Year of Soils, Strengthening Family Farming,” and it is being attended by over 30 participants from the continent.

Dr Alhassan said: “African family farms need technology generated by African scientists in Africa to increase productivity. This is paramount in the light of eroding natural resources and therefore dwindling potential for exploitation,” he said.

He said only Science and Technology could sustain the twin challenges of increasing productivity with less water and soil resources, and that explained why African governments were seeking the best technology either from conventional or biotechnology sources, to address the growing problems of climate change and its impact on food security.

That, he said, governments do by creating a level playing field for safe engagement of all technologies in agriculture and “we cannot achieve these objectives by pulling apart, but by pooling our collective strengths as public and private non-governmental sectors for the benefit of enhanced family farm productivity and African food and nutrition security”.

He said evidence suggested that family farmers in Africa were highly vulnerable to poverty, especially considering their limited capacity to absorb shocks, such as climate change and market forces, which had implications for food and nutrition security.

He, therefore, called for a holistic action to effectively put in place appropriate policy environment to help resource poor family farmers, to deploy their productivity potential, and sustainably manage the natural resources to enable them to feed the world and care for the environment.

Read the full article: Ghana Web

See also: Ghana Crusader

More trees in Ghana

Photo credit: Pulse

Hon. Mahama Ayariga (Ghana)

Ayariga advocates for more tree planting

Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation,Mahama Ayariga has urged Ghanaians to plant more trees to boost the vegetation cover.

According to him, the country risks losing its ecological zone, if measures are not collectively taken. He indicated that part of the country was depleting at a faster rate.

“Key success in combating desertification is behavioural change by all to protect our trees, plant more trees and engage in appropriate farming practice.

Read the article: Pulse

Cash crop production vs. food security

http://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/_processed_/csm_Food_security_1949_561d426c72.jpg

Synergies and trade-offs between cash crop production and food security: a case study in rural Ghana

by Anderman, T.L.; Remans, R.; Wood, S.; DeRosa, K.; DeFries, R.

in Food Security, Vol. 6(4): 541-554

Springer (2014)

Despite dramatic improvements in global crop yields over the past half-century, chronic food insecurity persists in many parts of the world. Farming crops for sale (cash cropping) has been recommended as a way to increase income that can, in turn, improve food security for smallholder farmers. Despite long-term efforts by development agencies and government to promote cash cropping, there is limited evidence documenting a relationship between these crops and the food security of households cultivating them. We used a mixed methods approach to build a case study to assess these relationships by collecting quantitative and qualitative data from cacao and oil palm farmers in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Three dimensions of food security were considered: food availability, measured by the months in a year households reported inadequate food; food access, indicated by the coping strategies they employed to secure sufficient food; and food utilization, gauged by the diversity of household diets and anthropometric measurements of child nutritional status. We found significant negative relationships between each of these pillars of food security and a household intensity of cash crop production, measured by both quantity and area. A qualitative assessment indicated community perception of these tradeoffs and identified potential mechanisms, including increasing food prices and competing activities for land use, as underlying causes. The adverse relationship between cash crop production and household food security observed in this paper calls for caution; results suggest that positive relationships cannot be assumed, and that further empirical evidence is needed to better understand these tradeoffs.

See the text: Biodiversity International

Raising awareness of the implications of climate change for cash crops

Photo credit: DAPA-CIAT

Cocoa production in Ghana needs to confront heat and drought

by Christian Bunn

How can we go beyond raising awareness of the negative implications of climate change for tropical cash crops and guide policies for adaptation? The project “Mainstreaming CSA practices in cocoa production in Ghana” proposes to use a transect approach to identify sites with high, medium and low climate change impacts and to develop appropriate strategies for each setting. Throughout the process local stakeholders are engaged to develop practices that are well suited to the local decision environment. Ultimately, the project seeks to develop incentives and support mechanisms that will drive farmer uptake of CSA at scale.

Last week at the kick-off workshop DAPA researcher Christian Bunn confronted local partners in Accra with the initial results of his research on the differential climate change impacts on various cocoa growing zones in Ghana. Previous studies had stopped short of providing information to guide adaptation at the required scale. A widely cited study by Peter Läderach and others first drew attention to the likely negative impacts of climatic changes on the main cocoa producers in Ghana and Ivory Coast (Fig. 1). A forthcoming study by Schroth and others (in collaboration with CIAT-DAPA) extended this research to West-Africa and showed that especially increasing dry season temperatures will be an issue.

Read the full article: CIAT-DAPA

Raising the stakes in Ghana

Photo credit: IWMI

Abdullah, a Fulani crop and livestock farmer, at home on the farm near the village of Jimli

Why fences, crop rotation and water storage mean one farmer is no longer losing the plot in Northern Ghana

EXCERPT

Abdullah practices a livestock/crop rotation system. He keeps livestock on a designated piece of land for a period of time ensuring a build-up of manure in one specific area. He achieves this by using simple fencing made from sticks and branches. After moving the livestock on to another site on his farm he grows crops there for three years. After that the soil fertility begins to drop and he brings the livestock back to the same site again.

Abdullah Ahjedi and Chief Issahaku Jesiwuni inspect Abdullah’s simple but effective livestock fences made from branches – http://i1.wp.com/www.iwmi.cgiar.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Abdullah-Ahjedi-and-Chief-Issahaku-Jesiwuni.jpg?resize=509%2C339

Fencing is an unusual technology for a Fulani to embrace. Yet it is a strategy that has the potential to improve his crop yields and also play a role in reducing conflict between different communities. Conflict between predominantly semi-nomadic, pastoralists and more sedentary crop farmers is a regular occurrence in the north of Ghana sometimes leading to violence and death of one or more of the parties involved.

Collecting water for household use every day takes a lot of time and effort. This activity is mostly done by women and children. – http://i0.wp.com/www.iwmi.cgiar.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Collecting-water-for-household-use.jpg?resize=325%2C227

Trouble invariably arises when a pastoralist’s livestock (generally cattle) have crossed over into someone else’s crop fields and eaten or otherwise destroyed them, and along with it their owner’s livelihood. Increasing the use of fencing in the region to keep livestock in certain areas and, equally importantly, out of others will help to remove a key catalyst that pits one community against the other.

New technologies for Africa

Photo credit: Google

This is the first time we have laid out a very clear action plan on what needs to accelerate the pace of the Green Revolution in terms of technologies

Africa: To Bring Green Revolution to Africa, Countries Must Develop New Technologies

International Food Policy Research Institute (Washington, DC)

 

The blind adoption of solutions from other continents won’t work for Africa

African countries cannot blindly adopt food policy initiatives that spurred the Green Revolution in Asia as a way to promote agricultural development, according to new award-winning findings by researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Professor Carol B.Thompson, Political Economy, Northern Arizona University, USA The Gates and Rockefeller Foundations propose to increase food production on the African continent, “eliminating hunger for 30-40 million people and sustainably moving – http://www.villagevolunteers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Farming_Kisia-with-harvesting-green-pepper.jpg

The research, which focused on Ghana and was originally published in the journal Food Policy, suggests that Africa must instead develop new technologies to improve the output of tree and root crops that are abundant in the region and to reduce the need for manual labor.

During the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, Asian and Latin American countries experienced a dramatic increase in the production of wheat and other staples by using new varieties and relying more heavily on fertilizer and irrigation. African countries have sought to mimic their success, but the adoption of similar policies failed to increase agricultural output.

“Assuming Africa is an appropriate setting for another Asian-style Green Revolution is misleading and could result in, yet again, a frustrated attempt to attain sustainable agricultural growth,” said IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Alejandro Nin-Pratt, lead author of the study.

Read the full article: allAfrica

 

Soil restorations: mulching, composting, erosion checks, biochar

Photo credit: Permaculture News

The practical on-ground (demonstration) site of The Ghana Permaculture Institute

Regenerative/Permaculture Practice in Ghana

by Matthew Onyeanula

EXCERPT

The Ghana Permaculture Institute was established in 2004 And is located in Techiman of the Brong Ahafo Region in Ghana It has two sites, one a Lecture site located in the city while the other site a practical on-ground (demonstration) site.

The demonstrated site located in Tanoboase near Baafi initially had degraded due to the fact that the top soils had been removed through erosion caused by deforestation and poor agriculture techniques. We have been doing a lot of land restorations through using techniques such as mulching, composting, erosion checks more. The demonstration site is now a place to behold as plants are doing very well together with the environment.

Ghana and IFAD

Photo credit: Agricultural Investments

Agriculture – Approach to Youth Unemployment in Ghana

IFAD hails Ghana as farming success story

by MALISE OTTO

GHANA has in the past 35 years received $782,7 million International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to boost farming, President John Dramani Mahama disclosed.

The funds, making Ghana the third largest IFAD country programme in West and Central Africa region, have supported 17 projects and programmes.

The disclosure coincides with Ghana is currently undertaking the approval process for a $36 million Ghana Agricultural Sector Improvement Program (GASIP), which will strengthen the agricultural value chains in the country.

The country is working on the establishment of a Ghana Commodities Exchange to facilitate a warehouse receipts system for cereals and improve quality of products.

To encourage the youth to take up agriculture, the Youth in Agriculture Programme has been institutionalized in 2013 to bring out the nexus/connection between agriculture development and Ghana’s ability to achieve its food and nutrition security goals are inextricably linked.

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture seeks to encourage their participation in the agricultural sector.

Read the full article: CAJ News

Desertification in Ghana

Photo credit: 2 Celsius Network

Northern Ghana, desertification.

Photo: Elena Craescu

Climate Change Furthers Desertification in Northern Africa’s Golden Coast

by Francis Npong, Ghana

in 2 Celsius Network

The kind of ecological calamity that sent Ethiopia and Sunden’s Darfur from relative food sovereignty to food scarcity is here with us in Ghana, as Sahara Desert has continued to turn the Northern part of Ghana into wasteland and marches violently and unstoppably southwards.

According to environmental expert Thomas Ayamga, about 35% of the total land mass of the country has already been turned into semi desert and that climate change has advanced desert in an already fragile regions, the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions, which together constitute about 40% of the total land mass of the country. Mr. Ayamaga who spoke to said in an interview recently said this part of the country also has the highest temperatures ranges from 20 degrees Celsius to 41 degrees Celsius with unpredicted rain patterns.

Already an estimated 8.2 million hectares of the closed forest of the country have been depleted as a result of farming; logging and sand wining leaving a current level estimated at 1.9 to 2.0 million hectares of wood logs, he said. He said the impact of climate change has furthered desertification in the region and that if the situation is reverse the temperature in the region might become warmer that could trigger climate related illnesses such Cibro Spinal Manigitis (CMS) and malaria infections. “Climate change has made farming unattractive and rainfall erratic.

Read the full article: 2 Celsius Network

Alarming effects of desert encroachment in the Northern Ghana

Photo credit: Pixabay

Climate Change Furthers Desertification in Northern Africa’s Golden Coast

by Francis Npong, Ghana

The kind of ecological calamity that sent Ethiopia and Sunden’s Darfur from relative food sovereignty to food scarcity is here with us in Ghana, as Sahara Desert has continued to turn the Northern part of Ghana into wasteland and marches violently and unstoppably southwards.

The effects of desert encroachment in the Northern Ghana are alarming. Changes of rainfall patterns and climate in recent times have devastated the lands leaving several kilometres of scorched farmlands, leaner livestock, dried dams, and rivers impoverishing the population. Already, poverty, hunger, diseases and unemployment have begun to force hundreds of the youth from Upper East, West and Northern regions to urban centers as a result of the loss of agricultural farm lands to desert encroachment, turning the marginal area of the regions into wastelands-climate change is to blame for this.

Read the full article: 2 Celsius Network