The price of tomato has crashed in most Nigerian markets as supplies from Ghana and Cameroun have arrived the county’s markets. Daily Trust findings revealed…
Findings revealed that due to the recent tomato scarcity that hit the nation as a result of the Tuta Absoluta pest attack on tomato plantations, tomato merchants have resolved to import the crop from Ghana and Cameroon to complement the supply in Nigeria, and as a result the price of tomato which had gone up initially has crashed.
A check revealed that a big basket of tomato which was selling for over N50,000 recently is now selling for N18,000 to N20,000 in Kano State due to its availability.
The Kano State Chairman of Tomato Out Growers Association of Nigeria (TOGAN), Alhaji Sani Danladi Yadakwari, disclosed that the scarcity experienced initially was as a result the pest attack, adding that with supplies from Ogun State in Nigeria and two other African countries, tomato supply had been stabilised relatively and the price crashed.
He said, “With supplies now coming from Ogun State and the two African countries, Cameroon and Ghana, tomato merchants have succeeded in crashing tomato price, and availability is now stable.”
The National Food Suppliers Association says its members won’t back down on their decision to picket at the premises of the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) if their 2 years outstanding arrears are not paid.
This comes after they met with the Minister of Education over the demands, of which NAFCO has indicated that plans are underway to get the Finance Ministry to release funds to pay them.
Speaking to Citi News, the spokesperson for the National Food Suppliers Association, Kwaku Amedume said they will not be moved by empty promises.
Mr. Amedume indicated that the respective agencies responsible for paying their arrears have been giving members of the Association consistent empty promises so much so that they can no longer put up with such promises.
“That has always been the story we have been hearing for the past two years; we are organising some money, we are going to release some funding, we should bring our names, we should meet at 10 o’clock. We have gone through all these processes and promises, and we are still where we are for the past two years. So I don’t think it is enough to just conclude that we are satisfied. Until we have our money in our hands, we don’t trust that this money will be paid to us”.
“Mind you, day-in-day-out, the value of the money with Buffer Stock keeps reducing, and so we are more than interested in getting our money than any promise, we want action, not promises.”
The Association on AU Day, May 25, issued a 14-day ultimatum to the National Food Buffer Stock Company to pay the eighteen months’ arrears owed members else they will picket at the Buffer Stock’s premises until they are paid.
The land area devoted to cocoa is enormous – at seven million hectares of plantations – across the world’s major producing countries: Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
Chocolate sales have boomed in recent months. As the cost-of-living crisis bites, consumers are increasingly reaching for chocolate as a simple and affordable pleasure.
The most important ingredient in chocolate is cocoa beans, which come from plants grown in the tropics. About 70% of the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa. The countries of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Ghana are two of the biggest producers.
Meeting the world’s insatiable appetite for chocolate has wrought a huge environmental cost, as the incredibly rich and diverse rainforests of West Africa are razed to make way for cocoa farms.
Research by my colleagues and me, released on May 22, sheds new light on the problem. By generating a new high-resolution map of cocoa growing areas in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, we found the area under cocoa production is truly enormous – and may be associated with up to 37% of forest loss in protected areas.
Price of cocoa farming
The Upper Guinean forests of West Africa have been classified as a “global biodiversity hotspot”, due to their exceptional concentrations of plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth. But much of this forest has now been destroyed.
Since 1950, Côte d’Ivoire has lost up to 90% of its forest cover and Ghana has lost 65%. Cocoa has been a primary driver of this deforestation, together with other crops, mining and logging.
But the exact contribution of cocoa plantations to the problem is not well understood. This is due in part to a lack of an accurate, high-resolution map of cocoa-growing areas.
Without a map, we don’t know where the chocolate we consume comes from. In particular, we don’t know whether the cocoa was grown in formerly forested areas, or even illegally in protected areas.
What we didWe set out to determine the location and extent of cocoa plantations by using artificial intelligence.
We used a type of artificial intelligence known as a “neural network”, which allows computers to recognise and predict patterns in data. When a neural network is trained on satellite images showing different land uses, it can apply this “understanding” to identify the same land uses in satellite images of other geographic areas.
In our study, we trained the neural network to recognise cocoa plantations across Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. We did this using satellite images, together with the known locations of more than 100,000 cocoa farms.
We then checked the accuracy of the information provided by the neural network, by engaging field teams to confirm the results at 2,000 random locations on the ground.
This combination of advanced technology and hard fieldwork allowed us to create the first high-resolution map of cocoa production across West Africa. And what the map tells us is worrying.
What we found
We found that the land area devoted to cocoa is enormous, comprising more than seven million hectares of plantations across both countries. The result is far greater than official figures – up to 40% higher in Ghana’s case.
What’s more, much of the cocoa plantation area exists in vast areas of what was once native forest. And more than 1.5 million hectares of land under cocoa production is located in protected areas.
Deforestation in protected areas is a major issue globally. Given where we found cocoa growing, and where forest loss has been observed, we estimate more than 37% of deforestation in protected areas can be linked to cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire. For Ghana, the figure is 13%.
How do we fix this?Our map demonstrates the massive role that cocoa may be playing in forest destruction in West Africa, including in protected areas.
This is a complex problem, with no easy fix. Cocoa is grown by an estimated two million mostly small-scale farmers, who typically live below the poverty line on less than US$1 a day. Expanding their cocoa farms into forest is one way farmers and their families can maintain or improve their livelihoods.
To fix this problem, we must help farmers manage existing farms in a more productive and sustainable way. Stronger law enforcement is also needed, to safeguard protected areas. Both will require action from governments and companies.
More money from chocolate sales should end up with the farmer. And consumers may also have to pay more for their chocolate.
Only determined changes on all these fronts will preserve the remaining forests of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
Personnel of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) last Sunday night intercepted a heavy-duty truck loaded with 200 maxi-backs of cocoa beans at Taviefe, near Ho, speeding towards Togo.
The Mercedes Benz truck, BA 265 V, was said to have travelled from Kede, through Accra, Sogakope and Ho before Customs officers caught up with it at Taviefe.
Subsequently, the driver, Felix Tetteh, 30, was arrested and handed over to the police in Ho while the truck was impounded.
Briefing the Daily Graphic soon after the operation, the Director of Special Services of COCOBOD, Charles Amenyaglo, said the operation followed a tip-off and intelligence gathering.
Concealment
According to him, the sacks of cocoa beans were sprinkled with fishmeal and covered with wheat bran to conceal the smell of the cocoa beans on board.
Mr Amenyaglo said initial investigations revealed that the same truck was involved in a cocoa smuggling case in March, this year.
Apart from that, he said, the colour of the truck was changed three times between March and May this year to avoid detection by the security agencies.
Further, Mr Amenyaglo said the truck, which earlier used the Accra- Ho-Hohoe route for cocoa smuggling, now operated through Sogakope to outwit the security agencies.
“We will get to the bottom of the matter as soon as possible and process the driver and all those involved for court,” he added.
The Director of Special Services of COCOBOD appealed to patriotic members of the public to readily volunteer information on the activities of cocoa smugglers in the communities to the security agencies and COCOBOD, in the national interest.
He said the driver of the impounded truck was now on police enquiry bail, assisting in investigations into the matter.
The President of the Republic of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called on African leaders to foster intra-trade partnerships to ensure sustainable economic growth for the continent
The World Bank has granted a US$ 100 million facility to boost production and improve the value chains of cashew, coconut, and rubber, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Operations at Tree Crop Development Authority (TCDA) Foster Boateng has revealed.
A review panel of the Supreme Court has in a 5:4 majority decision affirmed its earlier judgement to declare as unconstitutional a section of the Narcotic Control Commission Act, 2020 (Act 1019) which allows license to be granted to an entity to cultivate a small quantity of cannabis, popularly referred to as “wee” in Ghana for industrial and medicinal purposes.
Ghana’s cashew export earnings in 2020 fetched the nation $340.7 million, with an estimated untapped potential of more than $660 million.
Raphael Ahenu, the National Convener of Cashew Watch Ghana, said the cashew sector had huge potential and prospects to transform the economy and called on the Government to prioritize the development of the industry.
He made the call at the launch of the “Amplifying the Voices of Cashew Farmers (AVFC)” project at Sampa in the Jaman North District of the Bono Region.
The AVFC is a 15-month project being implemented by Cashew Watch Ghana, with funding support from STAR Ghana Foundation.
It is to help empower cashew farmers to grow more by advocating better prices as well as removing bottlenecks in the growth and development of the sector.
There was the need for the Government to capitalise on the global prospects of the economic tree and put pragmatic measures in place to transform the cashew industry as a vehicle for socio-economic development, Mr Ahenu said.
“Ghana’s estimated annual production of between 110,000 and 130,000 tons of raw cashew nuts is not encouraging,” he said, and that more must be done for the industry to contribute significantly to economic growth, particularly in job creation and poverty reduction.
Mr. Ahenu appealed to the Government to increase technical and financial support for the Tree Crop Development Authority to effectively implement the 10-year National Cashew Development Plan.
Victor Yao-Dablu, the Jaman North District Director of Agriculture, said cashew production in the area was encouraging and urged the Government to supply farmers with processors to add value to the nuts.
He commended STAR Ghana Foundation for funding the project and expressed the hope that its implementation would help fetch the farmers a good price for their labor.
Cashew Watch Ghana is a civil society platform comprising cashew farmers, non-governmental organizations, media, and local processors.
The Global cashew market size is projected to hit a value of US$10.5 billion by 2031, the CWG said.
Currently, the global market size is hovering around US$7 billion.
Undernutrition contributes to up to 45% of child deaths in African countries. At the same time, child obesity rates have doubled between 2006 and 2016. More than 40% of women of reproductive age are anaemic. And 13.7% of infants have low weight at birth. Stunting in the African region is 30.7% – above the world average of 22%.
In 2020, over a fifth of Africa’s population faced hunger; 346.4 million people experience severe food insecurity; and 452 million experienced moderate food insecurity.
Nutrition programmes have been supporting families in Africa for decades. But many of these programmes have inconclusive results.
As health psychologists and behavioural scientists, we believe this is because the programmes don’t focus on fitting into families lives. Doing so would also make nutrition interventions sustainable. Understanding the behaviours of the people being targeted by nutrition programmes could improve their nutrition status.
Our recent research looked at the outcomes of studies that had behaviour change embedded within programmes to improve nutrition for mothers and children in sub-Saharan Africa. Our findings show that nutrition programmes that focus on family and community behaviour change have better health outcomes for mothers and children.
The World Health Organization has outlined the importance of behaviour change to support mother and child health and help address barriers in current nutrition programmes. Our study goes a step further to show how to use behaviour change models to design better nutrition programmes.
Behavioural science
Health psychologists and behavioural scientists developed the COM-B model. It suggests that a person’s Capability, Opportunity and Motivation can change their Behaviour. Our study showed that this model can be used to consider what is happening in the lives of people when designing nutrition interventions including what barriers there might be to eating healthy food.
“Capability” from the COM-B model refers to a person’s physical capability, such as their skill sets, and psychological capability, such as knowledge about a behaviour. If a person doesn’t know what foods to be eating to be healthy or doesn’t feel they have the skills to cook healthy foods, they can’t change the behaviour. Programmes need to support people to know what the healthy local foods are and how to cook these foods, potentially through community-led cooking demonstrations. Our findings show that simply educating people isn’t enough. Making lessons interactive and practical in people’s daily lives increases the likelihood of behaviour change.
“Opportunity” from the COM-B model refers to a person’s physical opportunities in their environment, and their social opportunities such as their family and wider community. For example, if communities don’t have apples and bananas growing in their environment, or for sale, then they simply won’t be able access these foods. Programmes therefore need to support the foods that are already available to buy in people’s environment. If possible, they should also support the wider community to grow food. The people around us influence what we do and what we eat. Programmes should try to encourage key community and family figures to support nutrition practices.
“Motivation” from the COM-B model refers to a person’s habits and things they do without realising it (automatic motivation). One of the habits or norms in many communities is to prioritise men, then children, to eat first. Women often get the leftovers, even when they are pregnant. This means that pregnant women don’t get the nutrients they need. Programmes need to work with women, men and wider communities to motivate them to prioritise women’s nutrition, while respecting culture and tradition. This would encourage reflective motivation where people can consciously make decisions about food within social structures.
Building nutrition programmes
When designing nutrition programmes, the best way to learn about people’s motivations is to ask them directly about the issues they are facing and the solutions they want. Once you know their issues and potential solutions, you can use behavioural science models such as the COM-B model to categorise the issues and solutions, and start designing programmes to address these gaps.
To go a step further, the same behavioural scientists also developed the Behaviour Change Wheel, which helps us to think of different methods.
The Behaviour Change Wheel, with the COM-B at the centre and the intervention functions in the outer circle. Michie et al
Our study shows that applying the Behaviour Change Wheel to nutrition programmes may also increase their impact. The wheel suggests:
giving participants incentives
using persuasive communication
modelling healthy diets
restructuring the environment
educating on nutrition, in an interactive way
supplying resources such as tools and seedlings (enablement)
training communities in cooking or agricultural methods.
Using simple behavioural science models can help programmes to understand people’s lives and how to design nutrition interventions that directly benefit them, even when the funding ends.
The minister of food and Agriculture, Hon. Bryan Acheampong has revealed that the government in June will roll out a strategic plan to ensure food security and availability for the next five (5) years.
