The Vice Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
(KNUST), Professor William Otto Ellis, has lamented the long years of failure
by the country to realize any meaningful change in the agricultural sector from
the immeasurable volumes of research works published and reviewed almost every
year on agriculture.
The
agriculture sector, touted as the mainstay of the Ghanaian economy in times
past, boasts a number of widely recognized academic and research
institutions and facilities in almost all parts of the country churning out
volumes of literature on the sector yearly.
However,
notwithstanding the relevance and sheer volumes of research papers published on
the sector, as part of effort to enhance and develop best farming practices
within the country and the sub region, Ghana’s agriculture has not seen any
significant transformation over the years.
Ironically,
the agriculture sector continues to lag behind other sectors of the economy in
terms of funding, growth and lately its contribution to the local economy. This
is indicative of the fact that successive governments have failed to adequately
address challenges confronting the sector.
According
to data from the Ghana Statistical Service, in a revised 2014 GDP, posted in
April 2015, the agricultural sector is placed as the third highest contributor
to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country.
Professor
Otto Ellis, who was speaking on “Promoting Food Security in a Sustainable
environment in Ghana,” as a keynote speaker at a day’s forum organized by
GhanaVerg in collaboration with the Crop Research Institute of the Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in Kumasi, attributed the challenges
of the sector to the lack of commitment to implement policies borne out of data
provided on agriculture.
He
said there is enough data available on agriculture but the problem is that we
have failed to take advantage of it.
He
said until there is commitment to make sure that policies on agriculture are
used, there is no need to bring them out.
He thus called for a critical consideration of this development.
Touching
further on how to promote food security he emphasized the establishment of the
right policy framework to guide and support developed initiatives while also learning
from other systems.
He
observed that ‘predominantly as a nation, most of the people who produce to
feed the nation are small-scale farmers,’ a greater percentage of who lack the
required skills to transform the sector.
Against
this backdrop, he asked that there should be capacity building strategies developed
to deal help farmers.
He
said there is the need to design programs to build skills and knowledge of
individual smallholder farmers, and training on community and group dynamics
and networking with the potential to translate this into marketing
groups/systems for empowerment.
Again,
he asked for the provision of the right policy and support to grow the agribusiness
sector particularly by way of ensuring access to financial, social capital with
very low interest rates.
He
said banks in the country do not find agriculture attractive to invest due to
‘perceived’ risk associate with the sector. He therefore suggested that
policies should be designed and enforced to ensure that banks reserve certain
percentage of their facilities goes to into the agriculture sector.
The
forum brought researchers and vegetable sector players together to interact and
share ongoing research interventions that seek to ease challenges facing the
sector, and also coincided with the 15th Annual General Meeting and
Scientific Conference of the Ghana Institute of Horticulturists (GhIH).
It
was organized under the theme “Promoting Food Security in a sustainable
environment in Ghana,”
The
platform was also expected to be used to address research gaps as well as find
solutions to address the problems facing the sector.
Program
Leader of GhanaVerg, Mr. Joep van den Broek, said research is relevant in
promoting food security necessary to alleviating hunger in the world as well as
sustaining a healthy environment.
He
said the current challenges, such as phytosanitation in vegetable crops; soil
and climate change can be reduced if researchers and key players in the sector
collaborate in finding practical on-field solutions.
GhanaVerg
believes that this research should be private sector led. “We want to ensure
these research activities are relevant to the sector and not shelved,” he stated.
Former
Director, Crops Research Institute, Dr. Hans Adu-Dapaah, called for the
inclusion of horticulture industry to help bring improvement to the livelihoods
of the people, create employment as well as contribute greatly to address the
issue of food security.
