2013

Ghana Agriculture Review July 2013

GG Agriculture www.ggagriculture.com 7/23/2013 1|Page

Growth Green Agriculture PLC is an agricultural investment company solely investing in agriculture and farmland in emerging markets such as the Ukraine and Ghana. By producing wheat, chia and other crops in a low cost environment and selling them on the world-wide market, we aim to provide our investors sustainable returns for distribution as annual dividends.

Rural Growth Programme Transforms Agricultural

Agriculture has over the years been noted as the backbone of Ghana's economy. More than 50 per cent of the country's labour force is estimated to be in the agricultural sector, as indicated by the 2000 Population and Housing Census. In spite of this, many farmers in Ghana remain poor, especially in northern Ghana, which boasts boundless agricultural potential. It was to address this problem that the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP), an eight-year agricultural initiative, was formulated. The programme was launched in 2009 by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to contribute to equitable and sustainable poverty reduction and food security among rural households in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, as well as five other districts in the Brong Ahafo Region. The districts are Sene, Pru, Tain, Kintampo North and Kintampo south. The African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IF AD) and the Government of Ghana are co- financing the programme.
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After visiting a number of its intervention areas, the Daily Graphic observed that the NRGP had made significant progress towards transforming agriculture in northern Ghana.

Rehabilitation of feeder roads

Under its infrastructural component, the NRGP earmarked about 70 feeder roads, totaling over 600 kilometres, for rehabilitation as a major intervention to open up production areas to market centres. So far, over 15 of these roads have been completed and work is still ongoing on the remaining ones. The completed ones include the Pwalugu-Arigu, Yaga-Gbetouri, Kukuobila-Tamaligu, Tongo-Senti and Tainso-Kogua roads. It is evident in these communities that life has not been the same since the roads were rehabilitated. In Arigu, for instance, the regent, Naa John Asabigi, said the Pwalugu- Arigu road used to be in a very deplorable state and that in the wet season, vehicles could not travel to the village. "Today, vehicles come here regularly to pick people and also carry agricultural produce to the market. We can now take pregnant women and the sick to the hospital without any difficulty," he said.

Grants for agricultural machinery

One of the innovative strategies that the NRGP has introduced is a subsidy scheme on heavy agricultural equipment for farmers in the beneficiary districts. Under the scheme, known as matching grants, the cost of farm equipment such as tractors, planters, harvesters, threshers, and ploughs have been subsidised between 40 and 60 per cent to enable the farmers acquire these equipment.

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A commercial farmer in Savelugu, Mr Mahama Alhassan, who has benefited from this scheme, said he acquired three irrigation pumps for 76 farmers in Tamaligu to enable them source water from a nearby river during the dry season. Irrigation for dry season farming with the acquisition of irrigation pumps, many farmers are now able to source water from nearby rivers to engage in all-year-round farming and not wait for the rains. The 2011 Best Farmer at Jirapa, Nyelle Niyogkuu, is one of the farmers who has been assisted by the NRGP to cultivate maize, rice, pepper, groundnuts, butternut squash and okro on large tracts of farmland close to the Black Volta both in the dry and wet seasons. He told the Daily Graphic that in 2011, he cultivated 10 acres of maize and harvested 130 bags and it was this achievement that made him excel over other farmers at Jirapa and consequently declared the 2011 Best Farmer in Jirapa.

Linking farmers to markets

One bane to agriculture in the country is the lack of market for the tonnes of food produced by farmers. The NRGP has, therefore, taken the initiative to facilitate a link between farmers and production companies that require some of the produce to feed their industries. Through the linkage, the farmers have come to understand the crop varieties that are exportable and how to produce to meet the standards demanded by the big industries. For instance, farmers of sorghum and soy beans have been linked to Guinness Ghana, Ghana Nuts Company and Golden Web. Other farmers have been linked to major produce buyers such as the Savannah Farmers Marketing Company and the National Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO). In Tain, the District Director for Agriculture, Mr Francis Ennor, said the maize produced by the farmers was aggregated by middle men, who in turn sold the maize to poultry farmers at Dormaa and other places.
Source: allafrica.com 4|Page

6th Africa Agriculture Science Week Held in Ghana

The 6th Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW), organized by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), in collaboration with the Government of Ghana took place in Accra this month. The theme of the Week was: 'Africa Feeding Africa through Agricultural Science and Innovation'. It included sub-themes on Education and Human resource development, innovations to improve productivity and resilience, moving from competition to collaboration, and innovative financing and investment in agriculture. With the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) drawing nearer, the Week's topics were particularly relevant given that food and nutrition security remain key challenges especially in Africa, with a focus on home-grown food security and innovations that will enable Africa to feed itself and improve livelihoods. The Week brought together over 1,200 delegates including Ministers of agriculture, science and technology, researchers, farmers, extensionists, civil society and development partners. Speaking at the launch of the AASW, Dr. Tiemoko Yo, Chairperson of FARA said: "The Science Week, and the range of events taking place during it, plays a critical role in responding to burning issues in African agricultural Research and development. "The recommendations emanating from the pre-plenary meetings, which will be presented at plenary will take center stage in shaping Africa's agenda for food security, poverty reduction and economic development over the next three years and will also contribute to global initiatives for African development for the post MDG era". Instructively, the Forum for Agricultural research in Africa (FARA) is an apex organization bringing together and forming coalitions of major stakeholders in agricultural research and development in Africa.
Source. AllAfrica.com 5|Page

Insuring Ghana's Smallholder Farmers Against the Weather

Smallholder farmer Suleman Mustapha Simbia, 40, is pleased with the introduction of an insurance initiative called the Ghana Agriculture Insurance Programme. The programme is being implemented in this West African nation to help farmers who had been suffering from loss of income as a result of the bad weather conditions that affect their yields. "I no longer think of losing my yield due to the low or high rainfall. My confidence and love for farming has grown. And this year, I have increased the number of acreages I cultivate from 1.2 to 2.4 hectares," he told IPS. The system is fairly straightforward. A farmer pays one-tenth of the total cost of their crops at the beginning of the farming season to GAIP. And if there is no rain for 12 consecutive days, the system triggers a payout. This is the second year of its operation, and to date a total of 136 smallholder farmers received payouts on claims from the Ghana Agriculture Insurance Programme (GAIP) because of the drought in northern Ghana. While no exact figures are available for how much was paid out, the programme pays farmers depending on the size of their land and the amount they invested in inputs. On average, farmers who invest 150 dollars in inputs for half a hectare of land could be paid out between 200 to 300 dollars, depending on how severely they were affected by the weather. But the scheme is dependent on automatic weather stations (AWS). AWS is a mapbased system that records daily climatic data including wind, rainfall, relative humidity and temperature. The insurance programme uses data from AWS to ascertain when farmers are affected by the weather, and payouts are made based on this data. Agro meteorologist at GAIP Evelyn Debrah told IPS that the programme benefits farmers by protecting them from the cost of production during extreme weather patterns and allows them to remain in production following the disaster. "For example, if there are more than 12 consecutive dry days (less than 2.5 mm of rain) within 20 km of a GMet weather station, it will automatically trigger a payout to policy holders," she said.
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The initiative is funded by the German government under the Innovative Insurance Products for the Adaptation to Climate Change project. It is implemented through a public private partnership between the National Insurance Commission, the Ghana Insurance Association and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).

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