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
As countries around the world wrestle with shortages of imported fertiliser as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Peru has turned to a tried and tested alternative: bird poo.
In the 19th century, fortunes were made and lost on guano, the potent excrement of fish-eating seabirds which was harvested by enslaved people from Africa and indentured Indigenous and Chinese labourers.
It is a superb organic fertiliser containing an exceptionally high content of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium – all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano became such a valuable commodity that Chile fought a war against Peru and Bolivia over its supply in the 1880s.
Now, Peru’s government has launched the aptly named naval vessel Pelicano to transport the pungent cargo from coastal islands and peninsulas to the mainland where prices of imported fertilisers have tripled or quadrupled in price.
Sold at a subsidized price of 50 Peruvian soles (£11.6) for a 50kg sack, guano has been snapped up by farmers who cannot afford the rising prices of chemical fertilisers.
“The guano from the islands is good fertiliser and the price is reasonable,” said Segundo Cruz, a farmer in Mala, an agricultural town about 80km south of Lima. But he was concerned that crops take longer to ripen with guano than with the chemical alternative.
“Due to the increase in fertiliser prices, people are no longer sowing the same amount as before, they are planting just a third of the crop, not as much as before,” he told the Guardian. “It won’t be enough to supply the markets, and prices are going to go up even more.”
Moreover, there is not enough guano to make up for the shortfall for Peru’s 2.4 million small- and medium-scale farmers, of whom around half used imported urea and other fertilisers, according to the agriculture ministry.
“Guano is a very good fertiliser but there’s a natural limit to its supply,” said Eduardo Zegarra, an expert in rural development and a senior researcher at Grade, a thinktank.
“Around 30-40,000 tonnes are extracted [annually], at best 5-10% of the national fertiliser demand which is very, very limited.”
A report by the UN’s food and agriculture organisation has warned that a “perfect storm” of post-pandemic poverty, global inflation and the climate crisis has doubled food insecurity in Peru, affecting more than half, or 50.3%, of the 33 million population.
The price of a 50kg sack of urea has tripled, from about $20 to $65, as imports have fallen by 58% compared with the average of the last seven years, according to agriculture ministry figures.
While Peru’s fertiliser shortage is part of a global problem, local factors – and the erratic leadership of president Pedro Castillo – have only made things worse. Turnover in Peru’s cabinet has reached an all-time high with close to 70 ministers appointed in little more than a year, an average of about one every week. Castillo, a former rural school teacher, is the first sitting president to be criminally investigated for alleged money laundering and belonging to a criminal organisation, along with members of his family and inner circle.
But the son of poor peasant farmers continues, for now, to enjoy support in the rural areas most affected by the fertiliser price increases. “This issue is an achilles heel for the Castillo government,” said Zegarra. “The social base which still views the president with sympathy, or at least with identification, is precisely where this very serious fertiliser crisis is brewing. “If the government does not manage to solve this problem quickly, I believe that the effect on this social base will be very hard.” …
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Billions needed for water and soil conservation to boost resilience in small farms, says new head of UN’s agricultural financing arm
In his first week in the job, the new head of the UN’s agricultural finance fund admits he has no small task ahead.
Alvaro Lario takes up the role as head of the International Fund for Agricultural Development amid a global food crisis, which he warned could become a regular occurrence.
Lario wants the IFAD to focus on investing in the resilience of small-scale farmers so they can produce food for themselves and are not left at the mercy of external shocks.
“Resilient means that when you have a shock to your income – like currently, with inflation – when you have a shock coming from extreme climate, you’re not going to fall from the brink of poverty into poverty or food insecurity,” said Lario.
The current food crisis, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, would happen again – and soon – unless world leaders addressed decades of underinvestment in how food was grown and delivered, he warned.
He said hundreds of billions of dollars needed to be directed towards small farms by investing in water and soil conservation, offering low-interest loans, access to markets, and boosting productivity.
“What we’re seeing is that they are currently not even able to actually produce their [own] food, many of them have to sell their assets … because they don’t have enough to feed themselves.”
Lario said the impact of war in Ukraine had disrupted shipping of key crops for months and caused fertiliser prices to jump, exacerbating existing problems as 150 million people had fallen into hunger before the war.
“If we do not invest right now, in terms of tens or hundreds of billions, even if we resolve the Ukraine war soon, in two to five years we will be in the same situation,” he said.
“In the short term, we’ve had a lot of climate shocks, droughts and flooding that have also made it much worse, but generally, the fact that we have not really paid enough attention to how food is produced, how food is distributed, how food is stored, and the creation of jobs in many of these rural areas, is at the forefront of the crisis.”
The IFAD is a Rome-based UN financial agency that works with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme, as well as the private sector, to promote food security through sustainable agriculture by providing grants and cheap loans to farmers in developing countries.
Global food prices reached their highest recorded levels in March after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, while they have since dropped, they remain 8% higher than a year ago.
There is concern too about the continued high price of fertiliser affecting agricultural productivity, with sanctions limiting shipments from Russia, the world’s largest exporter of fertiliser, as well as a reduction in the amount coming from China and lower overall fertiliser production in Europe.
Lario said these heightened prices were hard for farmers to pass on to consumers, which is why the international community needed to finance farmers who did not receive assistance from their governments, unlike farmers in richer countries.
“The way of actually tackling poverty, of tackling food insecurity, of tackling the financing of food systems, needs always to start with this long-term rural transformation and bringing small-scale producers to the table,” he said. …
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The National Service Scheme (NSS) has projected a bumper harvest from its farms in the country this year.
According to the Executive Director of the scheme, Osei Assibey Antwi, investments in the NSS agricultural programme, coupled with favourable weather conditions, had made prospects for a bumper harvest, especially of maize, look good.
“Everything is going on well; we are doing three cropping cycles for maize this year, with a projected produce of 24,000 tonnes per cycle, so we project to produce 72,000 metric tonnes of maize this year, which will be a major leap from last year’s 5,000 tonnes,” he said.
Mr Antwi, who made this known when he toured the scheme’s 140-acre maize farm at Branam in the Wenchi municipality in the Bono Region last Friday as part of his one-day working visit to the region, said the produce would be sold to generate revenue for the NSS.
Other farms At the Kumawu Youth Farm, which is an agro-industrial zone, the scheme is cultivating 5,000 acres of maize, in addition to soya and rice, while there is a 150-acre maize farm in Ejura in the Ashanti Region,
There is also a 500-acre maize farm at Abutia Kpoeta in the Volta Region, with 400-acre maize farms in Damongo in the Savannah Region and Komenda in the Central Region.
Mr Antwi said land preparation was ongoing at the Ankaful and Gomoa Lome farms in the Central Region, Papao in the Greater Accra Region, Tantala-Yazebi in the Northern Region and Anweabeng in the Eastern Region.
The executive director said since the Russia-Ukraine war had resulted in a global food and fertiliser crisis, the NSS decided to rely on the application of organic fertiliser, which had so far been good.
Furthermore, he said, for the first time in the programme, a fully mechanised irrigation-supported project, which is also integrated in such a manner that nothing on the farm will go waste, was taking place on the Kumawu farms.
Mr Antwi said service persons who completed their one-year mandatory service and training at the various farms and were willing to venture into agriculture as a profession would be supported with resources to do that.
Collaboration He also said the scheme was collaborating with traditional authorities across the country to acquire more farmlands.
Mr Antwi said organisations, such as the MasterCard Foundation, had accepted the NSS proposal to release funds to support the scheme’s farming agenda.
He was accompanied by the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regional Director of the scheme, Prince Kankam Boadu; the Deputy Director of the NSS, Kwaku Ohene Gyan, and the Business Development Officer at the NSS Head Office, Gabriel Osei.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has reiterated his commitment to working hand-in-hand with chiefs, traditional rulers and all stakeholders in the fight against galamsey.
According to President Akufo-Addo: “It is obvious that if we are to win the fight, you and I have to take the lead and collaborate closely to do so. That is why I am here today”.
Addressing the National House of Chiefs on Wednesday 5th October 2022, the president noted that eighty percent (80%) of Ghana’s land continues to be under the custody of chiefs, whereas the remainder of twenty percent (20%) is held in trust by the president.
What this means, he said, is that ultimately the welfare and state of the land is a joint responsibility of chiefs and the president – although, by statute, minerals in the soil belong to the president in trust for the people.
“Historically, we discharged that responsibility well. Even though for centuries we have been a mining nation, mining did not pose a threat to the health of our environment and water-bodies. The rules that you put in place for mining ensured that the sanctity of our lands remained intact and our water-bodies remained unpolluted. Tragically, in the modern era that is no longer the case. And that is why I have come to you today to talk about how, together, we can repair this dramatic situation,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo indicated that since he took office on 7th January 2017, he has made it a central feature of his presidency to lead the efforts to rid the country of the galamsey menace, with a firm commitment made in his inaugural speech on the matter.
“It has not been easy, it has not been popular, and we have not got the immediate results that I was looking for. Indeed, in the last elections of 2020 my stance on the issue cost my party and I significant losses in the mining communities. It turned out that my statement that I was putting my presidency on the line in the fight against galamsey was neither bombast nor recklessness. It was the simple truth,” he said.
The president continued: “We have tried many initiatives, including that of the Community Mining Scheme and establishing a new legal regime for dealing with the perpetrators of this phenomenon – which has imposed severe sanctions on those Ghanaians and foreigners convicted of illegal mining. Still, we have not won the fight”.
In seeking further assistance from the National House of Chiefs in addressing the galamsey phenomenon, he noted that taking partisan political interests out of the fight against galamsey is one way forward.
“It can only succeed if it is a truly national battle that no one seeks to exploit for political gain, as we saw in the last election. The progress of our country depends on all of us, all citizens of Ghana, all Fellow Ghanaians, pulling together to defeat this existential threat to our future,” he added.
Reiterating the stance of government, President Akufo-Addo noted that: “We are not against mining, but we cannot accept mining in a manner that risks destroying our country. Our nation has always been a mining nation. Indeed, in the 15th century when the first Europeans, the Portuguese, came to our shores they called the first European-influenced town Elmina – meaning ‘the mine’ in Portuguese – because from their ships as they approached our shores that is the activity they saw our people engaged in. It is not surprising that in colonial times we were called the Gold Coast”.
He thus asked all Ghanaians to join hands with him in the fight against illegal mining, in order to bring an end to devastation of the Ghanaian landscape and pollution of our water-bodies.
“We have to win the fight to keep our environment clean and protect our heritage for our descendants, as you did in the past,” he added.
