The Birifor Women Association (BWA), in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba district of the Savannah Region has appealed to the government and other development agencies to assist them with modern farm implements. The appeal was made during the 7th Annual Congress of the Association in Kalba in the Sawla-Tuna Kalba district of the Savannah region under the theme, “Nursing the Baby Savannah Region through Agriculture and Formal Education”.
As part of the effort to help to improve poultry production, Amplified Ghana has embarked on series of demonstrations to teach poultry farmers the right feeding methods in order to reduce cost and make maximum profit.
A farmers’ association in the country says a ruling for Pepsi could set a terrible precedent for their rights.
PepsiCo is suing Indian farmers for growing potatoes which it claims it has the exclusive right to grow under intellectual property laws.
The country’s fishing sector’s abysmal performance over the years has deepened, as data released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) for the fourth quarter of 2018 show the industry’s growth has again contracted.
The Co-operative Development Foundation of Canada and Fertilizer Canada have partnered to advance sustainable agriculture in Ethiopia, Ghana and Senegal as part of the 4R Solution Project.
The Board of Directors of the Agriculture Fast Track Fund (AFT) of the African Development Bank (AfDB) have approved US$23 million grants to support agribusiness Small-and-Medium- sized Enterprises (SMEs) in eight African countries.
The multi-donor Trust Fund is being supported by the governments of the United States of America, Denmark and Sweden through their development agencies-United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
Each of the beneficiaries would receive between US$100,000 and US$1.5 million towards the preparation of agriculture infrastructure projects and financing or advisory services for agribusiness expansion purposes.
The projects are supposed to be implemented within six months and finance upstream work of project design, including feasibility studies, business plans, product and process certification, market analysis, as well as aid them to conduct environmental and social impact assessment.
The beneficiary SMEs were drawn from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania to increase food production, gender empowerment and create jobs in Africa.
The AFT since its inception in 2013 has been administered by the Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department of the AFDB and approved 36 grant projects, mostly private-sector sponsored agribusiness SMEs.
At the launch of the newly-approved grants, projects under the auspices of the AFT in Accra on Wednesday, Mr Yaro Baldeh, the Country Manager of the AfDB, in an address read on his behalf, said the Bank’s ambition to support agriculture transformation in Africa was pivotal towards eliminating extreme poverty by 2025.
He said the grants projects were at the heart of the Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy, intended to end hunger and malnutrition on the Continent, make Africa a net food exporter and propelling Africa to the pinnacle of export-oriented global value chain.
Therefore, it was prudent to harness the full potential of Africa’s agriculture and that the AFT was playing a unique and purposive role to support the development of a strong pipeline of “bankable” agriculture infrastructure projects, he said.
Out of the 17 projects, four would be implemented in Ghana while the remaining 13 would be rolled out in seven other eligible countries and those projects were competitively selected based on applications the AFT’s Technical Review Committee received from October to November 2018.
Dr Jonas Chianu, the Coordinator of the Agriculture Fast Track Fund, said a total of 1,022 entries were received by the AFT Technical Review Committee and after rigorous technical evaluation 17 projects were selected for support.
He said the funds would support SMEs in poultry farming, cultivation of seeds, irrigation farming and other interventions and expressed the conviction that the projects would positively impact on job creation, gender empowerment and improve agriculture infrastructure.
Mr Emmanuel Fordjour, the Head of the African Development Bank Unit at the Finance Ministry, said the support from AfDB to the SMEs was commendable and the Bank must be encouraged to do more since it would boost agriculture production and improve food security in Africa.
One of the grantees, Mr Gebriel Galatis, the Country Director for the Canadian Feed the Children, an Ethiopian NGO, said the support from the Bank would enable the Organization to undertake irrigation farming to promote food security, especially in the southern part of Ethiopia, which was ravaged by protracted war.
It would also empower women and young girls to undertake agribusiness and process tomatoes locally for sustenance of the local economy.
Another grantee, Mr JohnCarl Dunyo Kwame, Product Innovation and Distribution Manager of the Farmline, a Ghanaian agriculture company, said the funding would empower them to construct more warehouses to preserve cocoa beans in the Upper West, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions.
As part of the launch, a workshop was organized for the grantees and to familiarize themselves with the overall AFT operations and provide information on the processes, procedures and tools required for effective and smooth implementation of the projects.
Ahead of the 2019 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), Africa Urged to Embrace Digital Technologies to Improve its Agriculture
• Ghana announced as the host of the 2019 AGRF
• DFID, Corteva, USAID and UPL join the AGRF group of partners
Accra, Ghana, April 16, 2019 – Rapid growth in digital innovations and an inclusive agricultural transformation have been at the heart of Africa’s sustained economic growth witnessed in the past two decades. The continent’s economy grew by 35 percent between 2000 and 2014 and poverty rates are falling, with the percentage of people living on less than $1.90 a day declining from 54 percent in 1990 to 41 percent in 2013.
Now, the continent has been urged to take full advantage of the digital technologies to drive an agricultural transformation that will revolutionize life by overcoming isolation, speeding up change, creating more and decent jobs of the future, and taking success to scale with a sight at inclusion.
This call was made today at the official announcement of Ghana as this year’s host of the annual global agricultural forum, the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) to be held later in the year, 3-6 September.
Now in its 9th edition, the AGRF is considered the world’s premier forum for African agriculture. It pulls together stakeholders in the agricultural landscape to take practical actions and share lessons that will move African agriculture forward.
Organized under the leadership of H.E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, AGRF 2019 theme will be: “Grow Digital: Leveraging Digital Transformation to Drive Sustainable Food Systems in Africa.”
Under this theme, the Forum will look at how to harness digital technologies that have witnessed an unprecedented growth and adoption ushering in an era of disruptive innovation, knowledge economies and big agri-data. For example, mobile-based technologies have become an integral part of life in most parts of Africa with more than 44 percent of sub-Saharan Africans on mobile phone subscriptions. It is projected that there will be 634 million unique mobile subscribers across Sub-Saharan Africa by 2025, over 50 percent of the population.
Speaking at launch event in the Ghanain capital Accra, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto Ghana’s Minister of Food and Agriculture said; “Ghana is delighted to host this year’s AGRF; the first country to host the Forum twice since we last held it here in 2010 when the Forum moved to Africa. The Forum will provide us with an opportunity to share with and learn from our peers on the use of digital technologies to accelerate agricultural growth.”
“The Government has prioritized agriculture through increased budget allocation and the development of flagship projects like the Planting for Food and Jobs that is transforming our agriculture. AGRF will be an opportunity to scale this up,” added Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto.
H.E. Lionel Zinsou, Former Prime Minister of Benin and member of the Board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) which hosts the AGRF Secretariat said that Africa has seen unprecedented growth and adoption of digital technologies and has an opportunity to leapfrog the agricultural transformation trajectory of the past.
“Digital technologies are playing crucial role in agriculture by connecting farmers with services and information they need. This is especially critical for the youth who are digitally savvy and finding opportunities to engage in agriculture at a place of their passion. Our role is to ensure that they are supported to move these technologies to scale. This is what the AGRF will seek to do by identifying and catalyzing the enabling policies, programs, and investments to leverage digital transformation to drive sustainable food systems in Africa.”
The Forum will take stock, evaluate actions, and learn from compelling evidence across the continent, presented by many of the most inspiring leaders, including young people, turning agriculture into thriving enterprises. Farmers will demonstrate how the use of technology and better farming methods is able to transform entire communities and nations; Ghana’s and other public sector thought leaders will share experiences in delivering policies and investments to advance jobs and food security; while private sector champions and agri-preneurs will showcase their efforts in innovation and opening up scalable and sustainable market opportunities in Africa’s evolving food systems. The Forum will also look at critical climate change adaptation and resilience actions that should be taken to promote resilience in the face of climate change and other emerging threats.
Ghana was selected as the host for this year’s Forum due to its agricultural leadership on the continent by placing agricultural transformation at the centre of its economic transformation and for adopting a digitalization and pro-technology strategy. Through its Planting for Foods and Jobs (PFJ) strategy, the countr has benefitted from bumper harvest enabling it to export food such as maize, sorghum, cowpea, plantain and yam to Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire. The campaign also created over, 790,000 jobs in 2018 against 745,000 in the previous year.
Global Hand on Natural Environmental Care (GHANECare), a non-governmental organization has advocated that government must explore all possible means to determine viable and sufficient long-term funding for sustainability of ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ (PFJ) programme.
Illegal small-scale mining, popularly known as galamsey, is a subject matter that has been discussed widely in the view of immediate and long-term effects on the environment, agriculture, habitat and livelihood as a whole in Ghana. One area in which the galamsey impact is being felt most is the pollution of rivers and water bodies. In attempt to protect the rivers and water bodies, government placed a ban on galamsey.
HALIFAX — Genetically modified salmon raised in Prince Edward Island are poised for the leap to grocery shelves, a Canadian first that has left traditional producers concerned about setting their farmed fish apart.
