The Rearing for Food and Jobs is one of the government’s flagship programmes that seeks to develop a competitive and more efficient livestock industry for economic growth.
The programme is a five-year campaign expected to run from 2019 to 2023. The initiative is designed to address bottle-necks along five key value chains in the livestock sub-sector. They include sheep, goats, and pigs. The rest are poultry and dairy cattle.
The programme is also aimed at increasing domestic food production, while creating employment for the youth.
According to the President of the Ghana National Association of Cattle Farmers, Imam Hanafi Sunde, the government has not engaged them in any way on the project.
“Sometimes when the facts are pointed out, it is to draw the attention of people to do something better. For us the association, we have not felt the impact of the Rearing for Food and Jobs,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Cattle Ranching Committee, Dr. Kwame Oppong Anane insists that the government initiated the ranching system to back the Rearing for Food and Jobs programme to improve the livestock industry.
He however adds that there are still some challenges that must be addressed.“The meat consumption recommended is 30kg per annum per person.
According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Ghana is consuming 16kg and our own statistics show that the average Ghanaian consumes about 14kg.
Although we consume about half of the recommended intake, 60 percent of what is consumed is imported. Ghana has potential to rear all types of livestock with reference to how big the poultry industry is. If we can improve in feed production, the livestock sector will greatly improve which will end importation and generate more income for our farmers,” he said.
With just a year to assess the programme, it is important for government to engage all stakeholders in the cattle rearing sector to ascertain the number of employment created, as well as its impact on the economy.
The Board of Directors of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) has approved a total of USD 250 million for Ghana and four other member states to boost the oil & gas, energy, road infrastructure and agricultural sectors of West Africa.
The other beneficiary countries are Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. The approvals are part of the intensified efforts by EBID to invest in key sectors to spur up post COVID-19 pandemic recovery and mitigate the impact of the Russia – Ukraine war on the member states of ECOWAS.
This was disclosed by the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of EBID, Dr George Agyekum Donkor at the just ended 79th session of the Board of Directors of the Bank.
In his opening statement, Dr Donkor observed that the impact of the COVID pandemic and ongoing Russian – Ukraine war have left many economies in tatters.
He indicated that the current market conditions have compelled investors to seek premium on investments in sub-Saharan Africa thereby increasing the cost of capital.
According to the President of EBID, this has resulted in dampening economic growth, wide-spread balance of payments deficits, unfavourable terms of trade, depletion of central bank international reserves, fiscal deficits, and debt distress.
Therefore, Dr Donkor stressed the need for EBID, as the financial arm of ECOWAS, to deepen its financial intermediation in all the critical sectors of the Member States to assist them to recover from the economic challenges.
Present at the session was the Vice-President of the ECOWAS Commission, Her Excellency Damtien L. Tchintchibidja, who lauded the tremendous impact of EBID’s interventions in the sub-region and assured the Bank of the commitment of the new administration of the ECOWAS Commission to collaborate and support EBID in its multifarious activities especially in the area of resource mobilization to transform the ECOWAS Communities.
During the first week of October 2022, the Extension and Advisory Services Division through its technical staff, conducted a vegetable damage assessment survey in Agricultural Region Two.
The main objective of the survey was to determine the impact of excessive rainfall in September on farmers’ vegetable cultivation.
The findings from the survey respondents indicated that the impact of excessive rainfall in September on farmers’ vegetable cultivation is as follows:
Increased incidence of pests and diseases which resulted in 80% to 100% losses of carrots, cucumbers, watermelons and peanuts, and between 50% to 70% losses of tomatoes, cabbages and sweet peppers respectively;
High incidences of blossoms drop which was reflected in low fruit sets;
Poor growth and development of fruits and root vegetables due to excessive nutrients leaching and reduced sunlight (photosynthesis);
Farmers unable to prepare lands for new planting, and perform essential cultural practices such as weed control, pest and disease control, harvesting and fertilizer applications;
The monetary losses reported range between $1000 to $10000;
Extremely fast rate of growth of broad and narrow leaf weeds;
High rate of unemployment of farmers and farm workers;
70% to 80% of farmers inability to supply their main buyers and
100% of tomato farmers harvested fruits at the green stage to avoid split fruits.
In conclusion, it is forecasted that over the coming months that there will be a shortage of carrots, cucumbers, watermelons, pumpkins, sweet peppers, tomatoes and peanuts from the region which will have an impact on national supply.
Therefore, if the rainfall does not reduce significantly for October, then supply will decrease over the coming months. Consequently, demand will increase and prices will go up. Thus, in an effort to stabilize prices, imports will increase to meet local demand. Also, affected farmers will be in a difficult financial situation and will require support to get back into production.
The assessment was carried out by Agricultural Officer, Mr Donawa Jackson and his technical team, Miss Shamika Grant, Miss Shafika Andrews, Mr Alston Lynch, Mr Dwayne McKenzie and technical Aides Farmers. Interviews were selected randomly from among the major vegetable producers from Majorca, Forty Acre, Mt. Pleasant, Evesham, Riley, Water house, Green Hill, Fenton, Calder, Akers, Farm, Dauphine and Montreal.
Workers drying cocoa beans in the village of Goin DebeWorkers dry cocoa beans in the village of Goin Debe, Blolequin department, western Ivory Coast in this August 17, 2015 file photo.
Cameroon and Nigeria requested to join the Cote d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative (CIGCI), a joint body spearheading the interests of the two countries in the cocoa trade, the head of the initiative Alex Assanvo said on Wednesday.
The initiative was set up after a 2018 declaration by Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s first and second-largest cocoa producers, on willingness to define a common sustainable cocoa strategy that would raise prices paid to farmers.
It was created with the view of including other African countries.Representatives from Cameroon and Nigeria were invited to a CIGCI meeting in Abidjan to begin the process of joining the initiative, Assanvo told reporters after the meeting.
“With Cameroon and Nigeria we are going to represent around two-thirds of global cocoa production,” Yves Brahima Kone, chief executive of the Ivory Coast Cocoa and Coffee Council, said at the meeting.
“This will allow us to have more leeway in discussions with the industry on imposing a decent price for our cocoa farmers.”
The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) is cautioning the public against the consumption of two contaminated sausage brands on the market.
The Authority said the brands – AIA Wudy and Pavo brands under the Agricola Tre Vali sausage products have been recalled by Italian authorities.
In a statement issued by the FDA, it noted that the sausages contain listeria bacteria.
The statement further directed persons in possession of any of the brands to return them to any FDA office.
“The attention of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has been drawn to the recall of Agricola Tre Vali sausage products, namely, AIA Wudy and Pavo brands, by the Italian authorities due to the presence of Listeria bacteria in these sausages made from poultry meat.
”Considering the recall activities ongoing in Europe and other countries, the FDA has also conducted a market surveillance activity and Pavo Frankfurt sausages with expiry dates of November 2022 were found in Ho in the Volta Region.
The products have since been detained for safe disposal.
“So far, no AIA Wudy sausages have been found on our market. The FDA directs that anyone in possession of the above-mentioned products should immediately take them to either our Head Office or Regional Offices across the country”.
“The FDA wishes to assure the public that its surveillance teams continue to monitor the markets for any of the above-mentioned products”, the statement further added.
Due to the actual failure of the “grain deal” signed on July 22 in Istanbul, grain and fertilisers produced in Russia did not reach the countries that need them most, despite all assurances concerning the need for such supplies made at the highest international level.
The threat of famine in African and Asian countries has taken on new gloomy colours.
The UN and the EU regularly declare that no restrictions apply to trade in agricultural products and fertilisers between Russia and third countries, and yet hidden barriers disavow all these statements. European companies engaged in transportation, transshipment, trading, insurance, financial transactions, and technical services, in fact, refuse to work with Russian counterparties, even if they are not sanctioned.
At the same time, the European Union took care of its members. Having imposed sectoral sanctions on Russian fertilisers, the EU in April introduced purchase quotas for its countries – 837,500 tonnes of potassium chloride and 1,577,800 tonnes of other types of fertilisers containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
However, in August 2022, the European Commission imposed a ban on the activities of European operators related to the transit of fertilisers for third countries through the EU. In addition, the supply of fertilisers by European operators to third countries, even without using the territory and infrastructure of the EU, will now be seen as a violation of sanctions.
Taking into account the fact that Europe is the largest hub for the transit of various types of products from Russia to third countries, these bans mean a blockade of supplies to the neediest countries in the world.
Thus, the most needy countries received only the leftovers of the “grain deal”. Of the 2.5 million tonnes of food exported by sea from Ukraine, only 3 percent reached the shores of Africa and South Asia, the rest were sent to the EU countries.
The head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell and other top European officials have repeatedly declared and continue to declare that no sanctions are imposed on the critical humanitarian goods such as energy, grain, and fertilisers. However, their words are at odds with their deeds. No effective efforts have been made to lift the bans.One of the latest assurances of a de facto lifting of the ban on Russian fertiliser, coal, cement, and timber shipments was made by high-ranking EU officials on September 28.
However, this was done not out of humanitarian considerations but in order to encourage Greece, Cyprus, and Malta to support restrictions on the transportation of Russian oil by tankers. Hence, transport and insurance companies have been banned from transporting or insuring Russian oil if it is sold in the amounts exceeding an EU-defined threshold. As we can see, the problem of providing the most needy countries with food and fertilisers stays where it cannot be solved.
Currently, about 300,000 tonnes of various types of fertilisers have been stuck in European ports. Russia is ready to hand them over to African countries free of charge; however, they are not released from the ports. What is this if not the conscious desire of the EU to doom hundreds of millions of people in Africa to starvation?
In this situation, Uralchem, a Russian producer of potash, nitrogen, and complex fertilisers, decided to take initiative and act independently. In the end of September, Uralchem sent more than 23,000 tonnes of complex fertilisers NPK 27:6:6 to Africa as a humanitarian batch.
Since it is impossible to supply fertilisers and other vital products from the EU ports, the products were shipped from a Russian port. The ship went to the port of Lome, Togo, for the subsequent free delivery of fertilisers to Burkina Faso. The shipment is expected to reach the African continent in mid-October.
The actions of the EU preventing the transportation of vital products entail devastating consequences for many countries in Africa and Asia. The decline of agriculture, food shortages, and the spread of starvation among billions of people – this could be the result of the EU policy.
This is unacceptable.
For many months the EU has been publicly claiming that supplies will resume soon, but dependent countries and companies in fact must comply with many onerous conditions that turn these statements into nothing. So far, the “battle for food and fertilisers” is going on without any participation of third countries, that is, those who are most interested in the supply of these products.
The continuation of this battle for the sake of the political ambitions of the developed countries puts half of the Earth’s population on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe never seen before.
Nescafé, Nestlé’s largest coffee brand and one of the world’s favorite coffees, outlined today its extensive plan to help make coffee farming more sustainable: the Nescafé Plan 2030.
The brand is working with coffee farmers to help them transition to regenerative agriculture while accelerating its decade of work under the Nescafé Plan.
The brand is investing over one billion Swiss francs by 2030 in the Nescafé Plan 2030. This investment builds on the existing Nescafé Plan as the brand expands its sustainability work. It is supported by Nestlé’s regenerative agriculture financing following the Group’s commitment to accelerate the transition to a regenerative food system and ambition to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change is putting coffee-growing areas under pressure. Building on 10 years’ experience of the Nescafé Plan, we’re accelerating our work to help tackle climate change and address social and economic challenges in the Nescafé value chains.
David Rennie, Head of Nestlé Coffee BrandsRising temperatures will reduce the area suitable for growing coffee by up to 50% by 20501. At the same time, around 125 million people depend on coffee for their livelihoods2 and an estimated 80% of coffee-farming families live at or below the poverty line3.
Action is needed to ensure the long-term sustainability of coffee.”As the world’s leading coffee brand, Nescafé aims to have a real impact on coffee farming globally,” said Philipp Navratil, Head of Nestlé’s Coffee Strategic Business Unit.
“We want coffee farmers to thrive as much as we want coffee to have a positive impact on the environment. Our actions can help drive change throughout the coffee industry”.
Supporting farmers’ transition to regenerative coffee farming.
Regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming that aims to improve soil health and fertility – as well as protect water resources and biodiversity. Healthier soils are more resilient to the impacts of climate change and can increase yields, helping improve farmers’ livelihoods.
Nescafé will provide farmers with training, technical assistance and high-yielding coffee plantlets to help them transition to regenerative coffee farming practices. Some examples of regenerative agriculture practices include the following:
Planting cover crops helps to protect the soil. It also helps add biomass to the soil, which can increase soil organic matter and thus soil carbon sequestration.
Incorporating organic fertilizers contributes to soil fertility, which is essential for good soil health.
Increasing the use of agroforestry and intercropping contributes to biodiversity preservation.
Pruning existing coffee trees or replacing them with disease and climate-change resistant varieties, will help rejuvenate coffee plots and increase yields for farmers.
Focusing on origins from where Nescafé sources 90% of its coffee
Nescafé will be working with coffee farmers to test, learn and assess the effectiveness of multiple regenerative agriculture practices. This will be done with a focus on seven key origins, from where the brand sources 90% of its coffee: Brazil, Vietnam, Mexico, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia and Honduras.
Nescafé aims to achieve:
100% responsibly sourced coffee by 2025.
20% of coffee sourced from regenerative agricultural methods by 2025 and 50% by 2030 as part of Nestlé’s ambition for its key ingredients
Piloting a financial support scheme in Mexico, Côte d’Ivoire and Indonesia to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture
Nescafé is committed to supporting farmers who take on the risks and costs associated with the move to regenerative agriculture. It will provide programs that aim to help farmers improve their income as a result of that transition. In Mexico, Côte d’Ivoire and Indonesia, Nescafé will pilot a financial support scheme to help farmers accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture. Through this scheme, Nescafé, together with coffee farmers, will test and learn the best approach in each country. These could include measures such as:
conditional cash incentives for adopting regenerative agriculture practices
income protection using weather insurance
greater access to credit lines for farmers
Nescafé will track the progress and assess the results of its field programs with coffee farmers through its Monitoring and Evaluation partnership with the Rainforest Alliance. Its efforts will be complemented by new and expertise-focused partnerships, like the one with Sustainable Food Lab for topics related to coffee farmers’ income assessment, strategy and progress tracking.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions also by capturing and storing more carbon in the soil
Regenerative agriculture also contributes to drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why regenerative agriculture is a key part of Nestlé’s Zero Net roadmap. Nescafé aims to contribute to Nestlé’s Zero Net commitment to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reach zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It will work with farmers, suppliers and partners to help protect agricultural lands, enhance biodiversity and help prevent deforestation. The brand intends to help farmers plant more than 20 million trees at or near their coffee farms.
Going forward by building on a strong foundation
Today’s announcement builds on Nescafé’s sustainability efforts in coffee production. Since 2010, the brand has invested in sustainability through the Nescafé Plan and has made significant progress.
The 2022 Northern Hemisphere summer was one of the hottest ever recorded in Europe with over 24,000 heat-related fatalities, and brought intense heatwaves to parts of China and North America.
It was also very dry, and the resulting drought caused widespread water shortages, wildfires and crop failures leading to higher food prices, as well as impacts on electricity supply.
An international team of climate scientists led by the research group of Sonia Seneviratne, Professor for Land-Climate Dynamics at ETH Zurich, now analysed the possible influence of climate change on this extreme weather event. Their study published by the World Weather Attribution group estimates that human-caused climate change made soil moisture drought conditions in the Northern Hemisphere at least 20 times more likely, threatening crop production and adding further pressure to food prices and food security.
Intense agricultural and ecological droughts For their study, the researchers analysed soil moisture levels in June, July and August 2022, across the whole Northern Hemisphere, excluding the tropics. They also focused on Western and Central Europe, which experienced particularly severe drought with substantially reduced crop yields. Soil moisture dryness in the top metre of soil, known as the root zone where plants extract water, is often referred to as agricultural and ecological drought.
Human-caused climate change made agricultural and ecological droughts in the North Hemisphere extratropics at least 20 times more likely, the researchers found. They calculated that drought conditions like this summer’s can be expected around once in 20 years in today’s climate. If humans had not warmed the planet, the agricultural drought conditions in the Northern Hemisphere would only have been expected around once in 400 years or less.
In the case of West-Central Europe, human-induced climate change made the agricultural and ecological drought about 3 to 4 times more likely. This does not mean that climate change has had less influence on Europe than elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere; the different sizes of the regions mean the results cannot be directly compared.
“The 2022 summer has shown how human-induced climate change is increasing the risks of agricultural and ecological droughts in densely populated and cultivated regions of the North Hemisphere”, Seneviratne says.
High temperatures as human-made driver The main factor driving the heightened agricultural and ecological drought risk were increasing temperatures, with changes to rainfall relatively less important. Climate change increased temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere to such an extent that a summer as hot as this year’s would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change, the scientists found.
“The results of our analysis also give us an insight on what is looming ahead”, says Dominik Schumacher, postdoc in Seneviratnes research group and first author of the study. “With further global warming we can expect stronger and more frequent summer droughts in the future”. “That’s why we need to phase-out the burning of fossil fuels if we want to stabilise climate conditions and avoid a further worsening of such drought events”, concludes Seneviratne.
The Regional Director for Africa, Kwabena Frimpong has revealed that currently, the weather is the greatest cause of yield loss for farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa because agriculture is largely rain-fed.
The ongoing impasse between principal actors in the export logistics of horticultural products is threatening to keep the country uncompetitive in the multi-billion-dollar global horticulture market, rob the nation of desperately needed foreign exchange (FX) and undermine efforts aimed at self-sufficiency.
The stand-off stems from the decision by ports regulator, Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), to give the once-exclusive licence for two critical aspects of the sea freight process (stevedoring and shore handling) held by a company owned by the horticulture industry to a new company in which it owns a 25 percent stake – the Fruit Export Terminal Limited (FET).
This has left a vehicle expressly set up by government and the industry for this purpose – the Fruit Terminal Company Limited (FTC) – without any control of its logistics, contrary to industry practice in leading horticulture exporting countries such as Kenya, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa; thus leading to lowered efficiency and higher cost.
More significantly, the industry risks losing the future opportunity/ability to further drive down costs by balancing costs of importing agricultural cargos to subsidise fruit exports, as is done in most other horticulture exporting countries.
This can only be done if the Fruit Terminal and all associated operations in the fruit port are in the hands of an entity like FTC – which is not a profit-making company but rather has a mission to reduce the cost of exporting for farmers.
Commenting in an exclusive interview on the above impasse, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agriculture Lending (GIRSAL), Kwesi Korboe, stated that the development will leave the country struggling to compete in the market – even with fruit such as banana where it has a clear advantage over its continental peers in terms of production cost.
With logistics accounting for up to 80 percent of eventual cost of the product on retail shelves, he said: “If Ghana wants to compete, it is in the reduction of logistics cost. When the logistics are good, people will come to invest in the production of diverse agricultural products that will make the industry grow,” he said – citing banana, which has brought more than €600million into the country over the past 15 years and close to €54.93million in 2021 alone.
He further explained that as a result of the current cost and proposed logistics arrangements by GPHA, Tema becomes “the most expensive throughput for horticultural exports among major export countries in West Africa for like-to-like products”. A pallet at Tema is currently priced at US$25.5, compared to US$17 in Doula and US$14 in Abidjan.
Origin story
In line with government’s export drive policy, the Ministries of Food & Agriculture/Trade & Industries in collaboration with GPHA in 1996 allocated Shed 9 to the horticultural industry – to expedite and stimulate sea freight exports of horticultural products. The rationale was to enhance competitiveness of the domestic horticultural sub-sector through sea freight, and open up logistics to horticultural products that do well by sea freight for increased volumes of exports – which also drives product diversification.
In 2002, government through a World Bank-funded (Horticulture Export Industry Initiative) Programme, rehabilitated Shed 9 into a modern facility to improve horticultural product-handling and quality. The FTC was established in 2009 under the aegis of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) by a consortium of horticultural exporters represented by the Sea-Freight Pineapple Exporters of Ghana (SPEG).
From its inception, FTC was the sole entity exclusively responsible for stevedoring/shore-handling – the loading and/or unloading of cargo and horticultural products on dedicated horticultural vessels provided by the African Express Line (AEL) at Tema Port.
This was the arrangement until 2017 when GPHA arbitrarily granted exclusivity licence to FET – which is partly owned by a one-time service provider to FTC – and cancelled both the stevedoring and shore-handling licences of FTC.
Several attempts to renew the licence of FTC for both processes have so far proven futile; and after representation to government by the industry on the regulator GPHA’s posture following its action, the Economic Management Team (EMT) directed GPHA to grant the two licences to FTC. This has been done – half-heartedly – by GPHA instructing FTC to conduct the shore-handling while FET maintains stevedoring.
However, Mr. Korboe believes such an arrangement defeats the purpose as both entities have divergent objectives, which could end up worsening the situation. “That arrangement will not work as both parties have different objectives. The horticultural industry is trying to reduce the cost to boost sales by staying competitive with its competitors in Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon, while the other party is seeking a higher return on its investment,” he explained in an exclusive interaction with the B&FT.
It cannot be proper that a horticultural production/export company wrestles with production-related issues only to find its logistics arrangements managed by an entity that hasn’t got any risk exposure in production. Describing the developments at Shed 9 as a test-case for consensus-building, he charged stakeholders to look to the commitment of successive governments to ensuring the horticultural export industry’s success. In his view, the final price for logistics services should be determined by exporters.
“This is a project that was conceived and has been implemented by different administrations, devoid of politics. At GIRSAL, we are in partnership with GEPA, the private sector and government agencies supporting an export diversification initiative focused on both indigenous and foreign-owned entities. We believe if this impasse is not sorted out will become a disincentive for further investments in the space,” he added
