The Deputy Minister for Agriculture has dismissed claims that the country is faced with a food crisis.
Mr Yaw Frimpong Addo speaking on JoyNews on Wednesday admitted that currently there is a shortage of foodstuff on the market, however, that should not raise an alarm as this is the trend during the planting season.
“Food shortage, yes, but we don’t have a food crisis. I’m telling you that during the planting season every year, it has been like this. Just that this year because of Covid-19 and fertilizer production, everything about fertilizer (things have been intense).”
Interacting with Evans Mensah on PM Express on the topic of averting food crisis, Mr Frimpong Addo noted that despite the adverse effects of the pandemic and the low supply of fertiliser, Ghana was able to withstand the shock due to the Planting for Food and Jobs programme established by the government.
He insisted that matters of food security would have been worse and the country would have joined others seeking support if not for the programme.
“Go to our neighbouring countries and see how they are suffering under Covid-19 in agriculture. We are even fortunate and they even had to come to Ghana and take some foodstuffs away. We have done so well with the Planting for Food and Jobs. That has saved the situation. That is why we are talking this way. Otherwise, we would also be in the same soup as they are.”
He, therefore, urged that “let’s count our blessings and reduce this pessimistic thing about hunger.”
“We are not going to experience any hunger in the country, that I can assure you,” he stressed.
His comments come as a response to concerns raised by some experts in the agriculture industry.
The Peasant Farmers Association has predicted a food shortage next year due to challenges with accessing fertilizers and the exportation of some food products to neighbouring countries.
Experts in the Agricultural industry have therefore advised the government to store enough food this year.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister for Agriculture says he is optimistic there would be a good harvest this year during the harvest period.
He attributed such good fortune to the good weather the country has experienced since June this year.
“During the second half of the year, the rainfall pattern has been good. I am very sure that the farmers are going to get a good harvest. It may not be at the level of last year or two years but they are going to get a good harvest because the weather has been good.
“Because of that, I am very confident that overall, we will get a good harvest,” he stated.
Southern and Eastern Africa face the twin challenges of growing agricultural production to meet food demand while adapting to extreme weather. And climate change makes addressing these challenges extremely urgent.
Southern Africa is a climate change hotspot. Eastern Africa is projected to still have good average rainfall, although temperatures will increase and flooding becomes more frequent.
There is huge potential for meeting these twin challenges across Eastern and Southern Africa, where there are in fact good soils and water availability in many countries.
However, markets are not working well, especially for small and medium-scale farmers and agri-businesses which are at the heart of inclusive food value chains. These participants are often not receiving fair prices for their produce due to the way markets have been working, including powerful interests, high transport costs, and poor facilities such as those for storage.
Our mission is to share knowledge and inform decisions Analysing market failures requires information. Yet, poor market information has made the ability to monitor market prices in close to real-time difficult across much of the region. Up-to-date information on food prices is critical to understanding agricultural food systems in the region and for collectively planning responses. Information on food prices should be accompanied by other market information relating to production and market structures.
To address this, the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Competition, Regulation, and Economic Development has launched a market observatory. This is one part of supporting smaller producers in negotiating fair prices and in identifying measures to make markets work better across the region.
Markets not working well Volatility over time, and very large price differentials between areas in Eastern and Southern Africa for key crops such as soybeans and maize, reflect markets that are not working well for producers or buyers such as agro-processors.
The price differentials point to potential local market power being exploited and big profit margins being earned by large traders. The spread of larger traders across the region is meant to have heralded more efficient markets. However, market outcomes and high levels of concentration at various levels of supply chains indicate that there are also major concerns about market power.
For example, over the past 12 months, the patchy data supported by anecdotal information indicate that soybean prices have been extremely high in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi (above US$900 per tonne). This while there is great potential to supply from areas within Tanzania as well as from Uganda, Malawi, and Zambia.
Prices in areas such as Zambia and southwest Tanzania were below $400/t in May after the harvest and around $500 in Malawi. The difference between the producing areas and the cities is consistent with farmers getting offered unfairly low prices by large buyers. Large buyers are taking advantage of the poor storage and the lack of other market options available for the farmers. Farmers have to accept the low prices being offered.
The transport costs to the main urban markets should not account for more than $100/t of the difference between $400 or $500 and $900, meaning that massive profits have been made by the “middle-men” or traders. In competitive markets, trading margins would reflect reasonable costs and not super-profits.
These profit margins are at the expense of farmers, who receive low prices, while high prices are charged to agribusinesses and consumers in urban areas. This undermines production in the region. It also contributes to high food prices and compounds reliance on imports.
This especially affects smaller market participants. Large and integrated processors and traders have their own transporters and infrastructure, and better market information.
Smaller market participants are charged massively inflated transport costs where they look to bypass traders and organise their own sales. This undermines effective market integration across the region. In our research, market participants in Malawi indicated that those looking to export from Malawi were being charged as much as three times what were reasonable rates.
There are also high rates being set by local transporters within some countries. This suggests market power in transport and trading, including on the part of influential large trucking companies in some countries. Some market participants in Tanzania have resorted to placing loads on buses in recent months, incurring very high costs and yet still receiving the product at much lower than the prevailing prices in Dar es Salaam.
Next steps Smaller producers and agribusinesses are integral in growing production and ensuring the fairer and more competitive markets required for the benefits to be widely shared and sustainable. Small to medium-sized farms and agribusinesses have been growing strongly in many countries yet face many disadvantages in markets, especially relative to large multinational trading groups.
Action, including market monitoring, effective competition enforcement, and investment in the necessary infrastructure and support, is required to shape markets to work better.
Steps to support smaller producers are important in any event. However, the climate emergency means they are imperative and that the time to act is running out fast. The extreme weather currently in the Americas is a warning not to be complacent.
The El Niño state brings drought in southern Africa while inducing heavy rainfall and floods in Eastern Africa. The 2015/16 period saw the worst drought in Southern Africa for around 30 years. This led to maize shortages and prices jumping in countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, and Malawi. Extreme weather patterns also contributed to price volatility in subsequent years with, for example, cyclones in Mozambique, poor rainfall, and drought concerns in 2019 seeing prices spike again.
Adaptation to the effects of climate change means supporting increased production, such as through irrigation, coupled with intra-regional trade across Eastern and Southern Africa. According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment, while Southern Africa will experience less rainfall and more droughts, Central to Eastern Africa is projected to maintain precipitation levels, on average. When extreme weather hits one part of the region there will likely still be good harvests from other areas.
Urgent measures are required to support agricultural practices for farmers to adapt to climate change and increase production while ensuring markets work effectively across the region. The good news is that the region has the potential to substantially improve its resilience and increase earnings for farmers and jobs in the related value chains. This requires fair market prices and support for investments in areas including irrigation, production, storage, and processing.
In July, the United Nations sounded alarms with its 2020 hunger report, which documented a 25% increase from 2019 to 2020 in the number of severely undernourished people in the world. Sub-Saharan Africa saw a similar spike with an estimated 44 million more people suffering severe hunger. COVID-19 and climate change were the proximate causes, but lagging productivity growth in agriculture contributed as well.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) was founded 15 years ago to address that productivity problem. With generous funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller foundations, the alliance was founded as an international NGO dedicated to addressing chronic hunger and poverty. It would do so by increasing yields in key food crops through the expanded use of commercial seeds and fertilisers. This is the “technology package” credited with raising agricultural productivity in what came to be known as the first Green Revolution in India and other parts of Asia and Latin America in the 1970s.
The alliance set two key ambitious goals to be achieved by 2020. The first was to double yields and incomes for 30 million smallholder farming households. The second was to reduce food insecurity by half. With funding from private foundations and a few western bilateral donors, the organisation has focused on 13 African countries for most of its 15 years, spending about one billion dollars.
At Tufts University, we set out in 2020 to assess how well the organisation was achieving its own stated goals. The organisation refused to share data on its beneficiaries, giving no reason. So we examined data from its 13 priority countries – among them Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania – to see if there were indications that a productivity revolution was taking place, generating rising incomes and improved food security. We relied on data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Bank, which at the time had data through to 2018.
We found little evidence of significant productivity improvements. For a basket of staple crops, productivity increased just 18% over 12 years, practically the same rate as it had prior to the interventions by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. That is nowhere near its goal of doubling productivity, a 100% increase.
Income improvements were more difficult to assess due to limited data. But poverty levels remained high, particularly in rural areas. Most alarming, UN estimates of the number of severely “undernourished” people in those 13 countries increased 31% since 2006, a far cry from cutting food insecurity in half. More recent UN figures show that the number of severely hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole has grown 50% since the alliance’s founding in 2006.
No evidence of impact The organisation’s defense is, strangely, that its budget represents just 1% of development funding in Africa. So it argues that it is unreasonable to expect that the impacts of its work would be reflected in national-level statistics. I offer two responses.
First, the organisation set its own ambitious goals. By any estimate, 30 million smallholder farming households represent a significant majority of farmers in the 13 focus countries. If the alliance had doubled yields and incomes and halved food insecurity for that many farming households, that would indeed have shown up in the data.
Second, our research did not focus on the organisation’s narrow impacts. Instead, we gave it the benefit of the doubt and assumed that its true objective was to catalyse a productivity revolution, in conjunction with the many other Green Revolution initiatives on the continent, not the least of which are direct subsidies for smallholders to buy seeds and fertilisers. Those provide as much as US$1 billion per year in support, a far more direct and significant contribution to the Green Revolution project.
Our research assessed the progress of the Green Revolution project as a whole. This should indeed have produced measurable results in 15 years given the billions of dollars invested in the project. It has not.
Since the publication of our research, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa has been unable to provide evidence of its positive impacts on productivity, income, and food security. Its recently published 2020 Annual Report claims to do so, but my view is it presents only short-term changes for small samples of crops and countries.
A flawed ‘theory of change’ Our research paper calls into question the very premises of the Green Revolution’s “theory of change”. The theory is that if seeds and fertilisers are put in the hands of small-scale farmers, their yields will double, as will their incomes from the sale of surplus crops. And they will become food secure from the crops they grow and the food they can now afford to buy.
We found that: Adoption rates of high-yield seeds and synthetic fertilisers are low, in part because the inputs are expensive and do not produce high enough yields. Even with subsidised inputs, yields have failed to increase dramatically.
With relatively small yield increases there is little more to sell. For many farmers, the added income from sales does not cover the costs of the inputs. The incentives to abandon more diverse cropping systems can actually undermine food security by decreasing diet diversity and reducing climate resilience. Severe hunger in the 13 focus countries has increased by 30%.
Temporary increases in yields from Green Revolution inputs tend to wane over time. Soil fertility decreases under monocultures fed by synthetic fertilisers. Farmers grow dependent on subsidies and risk going into debt.
The failures outlined here implicate a range of initiatives, not just the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. Yet this year’s African Green Revolution Forum seeks to celebrate these entities in advance of the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit on September 24.
The alliance claims its forum this year speaks with a “singular coordinated African voice.” Outside the forum, representatives from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, a broad network representing some 200 million food producers, demanded an end to AGRA’s funding. In the words of Alliance leader Million Belay:
Professor Paul Bosu, Deputy Director-General of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Ghana (CSIR), has called for substantial investment in snail farming to position Ghana as the chief snail producer and supplier on the continent.
He said redirecting significant resources to develop and promote snail production would help Ghana penetrate the global market of snails, to derive the needed benefits, as snail farming required less capital than other forms of animal rearing.
Prof Bosu made the call in an interview with journalists at the close of a day’s training in snail farming technology at Bunso in this Eastern Region, under the auspicious of CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana.
He encouraged Ghanaians to venture into high-level, medium-to-large scale production of snails, because there is an already market, both locally and internationally, due to its delicacy and medicinal benefits.
“Snail meat is not only enjoyed locally, there is a global market for it as well, though there are European snails and other types, we also have our people in the diaspora who patronize the local breed snails, the Achatina,” he stated.
He asked the general public to consider snail farming in their backyard gardens where it could later be integrated, and others with small spaces in their homes could learn from it.
The training was aimed at equipping young people with the skills and knowledge of snail farming to help improve their livelihoods and boost snail production.
Prof Bosu noted that the time had come for much awareness to be created so that a lot of people could be trained to gain basic knowledge on how to rear snails.
He indicated that a combination of the awareness and the training would build the interest of people who would want to venture to see the need to invest in it.
“Sometimes when you tell people to attend training on snail farming they will ask, [with] snails too, do we farm them, I thought we collect them from the bush or forest,” he said.
He mentioned that for some time now, his outfit had realized that many people are missing out on the taste of snails especially the health benefits of being rich in protein, iron, calcium, and low in fats.
The decline in snail numbers, he said, had caused it to be expensive, and that the snail population is decreasing due to human activities such as bushfires, deforestation, and the use of pesticides.
He said the good way to increase snail production to supplement what is harvested from the natural systems is by training people to venture into its production.
“I encourage the youth, even if you have a job and you are not making enough income, you can add snail farming, explore opportunities by acquiring knowledge to supplement your work or venture full time and probably this may end up being what will lead you to your dream,” he said.
Mr Kennedy Datuah, a Veterinary Officer and a participant urged the youth to venture into snail farming because it requires less finance to start and indicated that, everything in the agriculture value chain had value in the market.
Millicent Amevor from the National Youth Authority office in Koforidua said before attending the training, she explained that snail farming requires no teaching, however after the training she has realized that if someone wants to venture into snail production that person needs to go through the tutorial process to understand its production.
She explained that she never knew snail farming was such a lucrative business and expressed the desire to venture into snail production.
The participants were trained on snail biology and types, getting started with snail farming, breeding and management calendar, diseases and pests’ management, marketing and business development, and finally visited the snail demonstration centre.
Snail production is considered a high profit-yielding farming venture when properly and professionally managed, and provides a cheap source of high-quality animal protein for human consumption.
The Government of Ghana acting through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and its Agency Ghana Irrigation Development Authority has constructed 32 houses for affected persons within the reservoir area of the Tamne Irrigation Dam in the Upper East Region.
The houses are to resettle the affected person to higher grounds to pave way for the completion of the irrigation project meant to ensure all-year farming as well as check the perennial flooding experienced by neigbouring communities.
Ing. Wilson K. Darkwah jointly with Hon. Stephen Yakubu the Upper East Regional Minister presented the keys of the ten (10) buildings to the beneficiaries on behalf of the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, at a ceremony in Tamne on Tuesday, September 7, 2021. Tuesday’s presentation brings to a total of 32 buildings that the MoFA/GIDA have presented to persons previously living in the reservoir area. Two more buildings are to be completed and handed over.
Homes constructed for the affected residents at the Tamne.
Appreciation The Regional Minister, Hon. Stephen Yakubu expressed his appreciation on behalf of the residents to the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and, the MoFA for the irrigation project, which is intended to transform the lives of the people in the district and its catchment areas.
He said the project would afford people the opportunity to develop the vast arable land for all-year agricultural activities, especially farming and fishing activities, in the area.
Hon. Yakubu urged the community members to protect the asset for the economic transformation of the district and the region at large.
Economic benefits Ing. Darkwah noted that the project would be of great economic benefit to the residents and the area at large.
He called on the residents to treasure the project and utilize it well to their personal and communal benefit.
“Those who lost their crops and farmlands to the reservoir should let them go. If you do not sacrifice something, you can never get anything good,” he said. He further commended the residents for their patience during the project execution period. He assured them that GIDA as part of its mandate will collaborate with the Fisheries Commission to stock the reservoir with fingerlings. He further indicated that crop compensation was ready for tree crops in the reservoir
The project even though partially completed has started yielding results as the residents have started fishing from the reservoir. This has brought a sigh of relief to the residents as they would no longer worry whenever it threatens to rain; the issue of perineal flooding is now a thing of the past. Now that the reservoir has filled to its capacity and spilling no more additional inundation is expected.
Although there were few challenges during the construction of the buildings, it has finally seen the light of day and GIDA is grateful for the long patience that the affected persons had to bear in order to finally move into their new houses.
Project History The General Manager of Munisco Limited, Ing. Jawal Abdul-Rakeeb, who led the execution of the dam and housing project, said that MoFA engaged the company to construct the works
He explained that owing to relocation challenges, they could not work continuously on the dam, noting that the challenges delayed the progress of work.
The objective of the Tamne Irrigation Project is to provide water for all-year-round agriculture in order to transform the lives of the people through poverty reduction. It is also aimed to mitigate the perennial flooding of the region. Thirteen (13) communities within the project catchment area are expected to benefit from the project when completed.
He thanked all stakeholders in the district and the communities for their support and immerse cooperation during the construction work.
After four days of active engagement around the creation of resilient and sustainable food systems in Africa, the AGRF 2021 Summit came to an end on the evening of Friday, September 10, 2021.
At the closing ceremony, various leaders from across Africa appealed for the participation of all stakeholders in the pursuit of a food systems transformation that will increase food security and income for all on the continent.
Notably, Lucy Muchoki, the Chief Executive of the Pan-African Agribusiness and Agroindustry Consortium reiterated that the economic transformation of the continent will be led by its inhabitants, even as she appealed for support from development partners.
Her sentiments were supported by Hon. Dr. Hadiza Sabuwa Balarabe, the Deputy Governor of Nigeria’s Kaduna State, noted the need for provoking youth participation in agricultural and food systems transformation.
“It has been difficult to get youth attracted to agriculture but we are working to make farming exciting, including through digital agriculture technology,” she said, citing the effort her government is making.
Meanwhile, Dr. Godfrey Bahiigwa, the Director of Agriculture and Rural Development at the African Union Commission, announced that Africa had attained a common position for submission to the UN Food Systems Summit (UN FSS) in New York starting September 23.
The UN FSS will bring together the world’s leaders in reviewing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
“The Africa common position is rich, it has 43 game-changing proposals, and if fully implemented will help to transform Africa’s food systems and make them resilient.
“For Africa, in tracking the commitments of the UN FSS that our members will adopt, we shall be using the CAADP Biennial Review Report,” he said.
In his closing remarks, H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, Chair of the AGRA Board, hailed the AGRF 2021 Summit as a historical event that was attended by a record number of heads of state, ministers, heads of development organizations, business people, and farmers.
As confirmed by Jennifer Baarn, the acting Managing Director of the AGRF, in the four days of the AGRF Summit 4000 government officials, investors, and entrepreneurs from 89 countries engaged in the Agribusiness Dealroom, where USD 5.1 of investment needs were presented.
Various awards were also presented during the event, including the Africa Food Prize, the GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize, and the Value4Her Women Agripreneur of the Year Award (WAYA).
From Nairobi, Kenya, the AGRF Summit will be held at Kigali, Rwanda, for 2022 – the official home of the annual event.
The Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers (GNAPF) has projected that a crate of eggs, which currently costs between GH¢20-24 depending on the size, could be sold at an average price of GH¢30 by December 2021.
The projection in price increase per crate is as well expected to affect the price of an egg, which currently sells at GH¢1.50 pesewas in most places.
The association has said the poultry sector is in dire need of support to stand on its feet amidst the negative impacts of the pandemic, which has become a threat to the already-collapsing industry.
Players in the poultry value chain are of the firm belief that until a pragmatic policy framework is put in place, the poultry industry cannot take its rightful place in contributing meaningfully to the country’s GDP.
Ghana currently imports over US$350 million (about 180,000 metric tonnes) worth of chicken annually, or the equivalent of five million chickens each week. The country’s own production equates to about 58,000MT whereas national demand is about 400,000MT.
Ghana also continues to import a chunk of its eggs from Ivory Coast.
But the Northern Regional Chairman of GNAPF, George Dassah expressed the association’s displeasure about the current economic situation affecting the poultry value chain.
He was addressing stakeholders in the poultry sector at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) conference room in Tamale.
With some poultry farms folding up due to the pandemic, the cost of feed has been skyrocketing as a result of the increasing price of maize being the major ingredient in poultry in feed production.
Feed cost currently constitutes 65 percent of the total cost of poultry production. Within the space of 12 months, from August last year, the cost of 100 kg of maize has risen from GH¢130 to GH¢320-350 depending on the location the farmer is purchasing from. Though there are opportunities to augment local production, the government’s assurance and policies for the sector are yet to fully benefit the majority of poultry farmers.
The status of the much-touted Broiler Revitalisation Programme by the government in 2020; to provide 4-million day-old chicks annually to poultry farmers for five years, has begun in the Greater Accra Region, albeit, with little sign of the initiative being spread evenly to benefit farmers nationwide.
GNAPF attributed challenges in the sector to neglect by successive governments adding, “the poultry fraternity has not experienced any concrete achievement over the years.”
The association feared that the situation would further increase the unemployment rate considering the frequency of closure of poultry businesses and its associated effects in the value chain. “We are appealing to the government to engage us in order to devise and implement policies that would lead to the subsequent revamp of the sector,” GNAPF implored.
The Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association. In July this year, the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association (GAPFA) held a similar media engagement on the challenges in the sector. GAPFA mentioned the high cost of maize, soya bean cake, and sorghum as the major deterrent factors aiding the collapse of the sector. In addition, the association noted that the unavailability of these ingredients on the market is further curtailing the poultry business.
As part of efforts to boost the production of cashew in the country, a total of 19,000 improved cashew seedlings have been distributed to 470 small-scale farmers across eight districts.
The beneficiary farmers are scattered across these areas, Wenchi, Tain (Bono Region), Kintampo South and Nkoranza North (Bono East), Tano North (Ahafo) Bole (Savanna), Sogakope (Volta), and Nkwanta South (Oti).
The intervention is an aspect of a five-year Cashew Project (Pro-Cashew) being implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), an American NGO and funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The CNFA also collaboration with an institution like the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to implement the project in the country.
The project seeks to promote the cultivation of the tree crop to improve the livelihood of farmers by enhancing their income levels. The focused countries for the five-year project are Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria.
On behalf of the beneficiary farmers, Mr. Mbema Saaka, a former illegal miner at Bole expressed gratitude to CNFA for the kind support, stating that the intervention will go a long way as an alternative but sustainable livelihood initiative to make a meaningful living after bowing out of the galamsey business.
The Country Representative of CNFA Procashew Project, Eleazer Tackie, pledged the unflinching commitment of the organization to assist improve the socioeconomic status of the rural folk by extending their benevolence to benefit more farmers in other areas as well as build the capacity of farmers to rehabilitate and maintain cashew farms, indicating that more 37, 000 seedlings will be distributed to about 1,000 farmers in Regions and Districts that were not captured during the first phase of the project.
He said: “To increase the capacity of farmers to maintain their cashew farms, the project will in the month of September train about 1,500 cashew farmers, largely from the districts and regions which have received the improved seedlings. The training will be done in collaboration with the District MoFA officers. The training will cover GAPs in cashew, including rehabilitation and maintenance of cashew farms.”
The 2021 Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR21) was launched today at the AGRF Summit in Nairobi, Kenya to address the challenges and opportunities in the creation of sustainable and resilient Agri-Food Systems in Africa.
It explores what Building Resilient and Sustainable Food Africa Systems entails, and calls for the necessary actions by governments, pan- African organizations, bilateral and multilateral development partners, and the private sector.
“This year’s AASR21 details the practical steps all stakeholders from governments and regional organizations to the private sector need to take to rebuild and enhance Africa’s food systems,” said Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). “The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that despite the progress we have made over the last decade, Africa’s food systems remain fragile to external shocks.
We must take the opportunity we have to rebuild from the pandemic, to make our food systems more resilient without putting further pressure on the environment,” Dr. Kalibata added.
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has registered the most rapid rate of agricultural production growth since 2000 than any other region in the world.
However, three-quarters of this growth is driven by the expansion of the cropland over yield increase. With Africa’s population expected to double to nearly 2.5 billion by 2050, now is the time for stakeholders to put steps in place to increase production without compromising the continent’s natural resources.
“Raising yields and productivity on existing farmlands is among the most important ways to make African food systems more resilient and sustainable. Raising productivity on existing farmlands will reduce pressures for continued expansion of cropland, and preserve valued forest and grassland ecosystems and the biodiversity that they provide,” said Andrew Cox, AGRA’s Chief of Staff and Strategy.
The report outlines the priorities and the next steps that must be taken by all stakeholders to achieve the transformation that will lead to sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. “The AASR21 should serve as a wake-up call of the need to act urgently to support the creation of resilient food systems and reverse or mitigate the impact we have seen on the environment,” said Dr. Thom Jayne of Michigan State University, and Lead Author of the report.
“One of the first steps is meaningfully increased public investments in agricultural research, development, and extension. While agricultural R&D spending has risen over the years, in SSA public investments amount to less than 1 percent of the agricultural GDP in most countries,” Dr. Jayne added.
The report further builds on the call to action of the African governments from the UN Food Systems Summit, recognizing the need for urgency in this last decade of the global effort to realize the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
The AASR21 was launched at the 11th edition of the AGRF Summit, an annual gathering that brings together heads of state and government, agriculture ministers, members of the civil society, private sector leaders, scientists, and farmers in discussions that define the future of Africa’s food systems.
Under the theme Pathways to Recovery and Resilient Food Systems, this year’s AGRF Summit will explore the pathways and actions needed to steer the continent towards food systems that will deliver sufficient and nutritious food, protect the environment and create sustainable jobs.
The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has said its Environmental Health Department has doubled its effort to clampdown on the sale of any unwholesome food product on the market following the discovery of 15 cartons of rotten chicken meant for sale to the public.
The Public Relations Officer of KMA, Henrietta Afia Konadu, said the Food Hygiene Unit, of the Environmental Health Department plans on conducting a thorough search on cold storage facilities in the metropolis, to see if there are any unwholesome food products being sold for public consumption.
The development follows the arrest of two persons by KMA Metro guards when they attempted to cart 15 cartons of unwholesome chicken at Adakwame Lorry Station around Mbrom, in the Kumasi Metropolis.
The rotten chickens were being transported by one Abiba and are believed they were intended to be smoked or roasted for sale within Asuofua, Adakwame, and Kejetia environs. One of the alleged suspects, Abiba has since led the Environmental Health Officers at KMA to arrest the operator of the cold store at the Asafo Market, where some more rotten chickens were discovered. The two have been sent to the Ridge Police Station for further investigations.
Meanwhile, according to the Public Relations Officer of KMA, the Police officers handling the case have said the suspects are being processed for court, while investigations continue to find out if there are more rotten chickens from the source where the products were transported to the cold store.
Speaking in an interview with the B&FT, the Deputy Director in charge of Public Health, in the Ashanti Region, Dr. Michael Rockson Adjei, noted that the consumption of wholesome products can lead to death among other health risks.
The consumption of unwholesome food products, processed or raw, results in food poisoning due to bacteria infestation, of the contaminated food item. This makes the food products detrimental to human health when it is consumed.
Dr. Michael Rockson Adjei also said: “the other side is that there is loss of nutritional value, as the food goes bad. Should one even escape the acute outcome like death or diarrhea or the other effects, you may not benefit nutritionally.”
He, therefore, cautioned that while there are agencies like the Food and Drugs Authority, as well as the local assemblies that have the mandate to ensure that only healthy food products are allowed on the markets, the public should also be mindful of what they buy. “Individuals have their own duty to protect themselves while the regulatory agencies and assemblies continue to do their job.”
He entreated the public to pay attention to expiry dates on food items sold on the market as well as being mindful of the environment where they purchase or patronize cooked and uncooked foods.
