World Bank Invests U.S.$300 Million in Ghana Cocoa Industry

The World Bank is set to invest $300 million in Ghana's cocoa industry to shore up production of the crop over the next five years, a Senior World Bank Agricultural Economist, Amos Gyau has announced.

Under the Cocoa Sector Value Chain Project, the initiative is to increase productivity levels of cocoa farmers as well as promote value addition.

Gyau explained that the government had approached the World Bank to support the country to increase her cocoa production and thus the World Bank and government as well as Cocoa Board was discussing the modalities of the project.

He said the objective of the project was to help farmers increase their production levels from the current 300 kilogrammes per hectare to two tonnes per hectare over the period.

"The World Bank seeks to support the cocoa sector to double productivity in the next five years," he said, through the provision of better seedlings and inputs to farmers, hand pollination and educating farmers on best agronomic practices.

Dr Gyau also intimated that the annual value of the world cocoa trade amounted to about $9 billion and only 7 per cent got to the cocoa producing countries because the cocoa produce was exported in its raw state to the world market, saying it was to reverse that the World Bank intends to finance the Cocoa Value Chain Project.

Full article...

Why Ghanaian Banks Neglect Financing Smallholder Farmer

...they are simply lazy thinkers, expecting foreign guarantors to provide them 100% cover before they commit to agri-lending.

...international donor institutions have previously given incentives for agricultural value chain financing, but only to banks lending to medium to large agribusiness, with smallholder farmers merely tagged on as outgrower suppliers.

Full article...

Challenges facing Ghana's cocoa sector

An analyst has called for the firing of the chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) on the grounds that the important sector's fortunes have been declining under his watch.


“Consistently, cocoa has been under-performing and there is no reason why we should keep him there,” said
Sydney Casely-Hayford about Stephen Kwabena Opuni.

'Under his leadership, the cocoa sector which is the leading foreign exchange earner for the country has suffered major setbacks,' says a media report.

Amongst the sector's many challenges: Inadequate rainfall, lack of pesticides and fertilizers for farmers, the depreciation of the cedi (1 U.S. $ = 3.75 Ghana Cedi, 09 August 2015 rate) increased smuggling of cocoa beans, delayed resource allocation, the reduction of government spraying programme, among others have adversely affected the sector.

At the beginning of the 2014/2015 cocoa season, COCOBOD projected a target yield of 1 million tonnes; a projection many industry players described as over ambitious. The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) subsequently dropped Ghana’s yield for the 2014/2015 crop season by about 20% from some 900,000 tonnes to about 700,000 tonnes.

African Agriculture

Farmers use treated mosquito nets to shade seedlings

Some farmers in the Upper West Region of Ghana have found an agricultural use for mosquito nets they are provided free of charge as part of a malaria-prevention programme.

Instead of sleeping under the nets, the farmers instead use them to provide filtered sunlight for their tender crop seedlings.

A pepper farmer explained, "I don’t feel comfortable when I sleep under the net, so I learnt from other people about how to use it on the farm" he said.

The holes of the net are small enough to provide a physical barrier against mosquitoes getting to the person sleeping under it, but in a poorly ventilated room in a hot, humid climate, they can also significantly reduce air flow, making the discomfort of a hot, sweaty sleep more of an issue than the fear of mosquito bites.  

African Agriculture

New Millennium Village project in Ghana, old questions remain

Northern Ghana is hosting a new Millennium Village, an experiment in what is hoped will result in a sort of holistic type of development embracing farming improvements, better school and health care access and more.

The concept is the brainchild of American economist Jeffrey Sachs, who has over several years mobilized funding to set up about a dozen such villages in various African countries. He says the lessons learned from the villages will serve as a model for how to bring integrated development to neglected areas like the site of the new project.

The Ghanaian government and local partners are said to have pledged some of the funding for the $24 million project, but the UK Department for International Development (DFID) is the single biggest contributor at $18 million.

There are skeptics about the Millennium Village model, chief among them Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, Washington D.C. His main criticism of the concept is based on sustainability, the important but difficult variable that dooms many 'development projects' before they even start.

Says Clemens, "Triple the size of the entire local economy and you can do something good for people, of course. I mean sure, as a humanitarian model, as a pure charity you can do so much for individual families, for individual children, and I admire people who do that. But to suggest … that this is something that can go on and on... How?"

"How likely is it that without the lavish expenditures of a New York-centered philanthropist-funded organization, the project can continue for long?" Clemens asks.

Clemens points to a similarly-structured World Bank-funded project of the 1970s/1980s, Integrated Rural Development, which he says failed when the funding ran out.

Sachs says his project is different in important ways. "The earlier programs did not include computers, email, internet for data management, systems control, mapping, monitoring, banking, payments, health care, teaching, process control, value chains and countless more areas," he says.

Other criticisms are that the projects create dependence amongst recipients, and that its is unrealistic to expect real 'development' in pockets isolated from what is happening in the rest of a country.

Out of DFID's contribution $3 million will go towards a 10 year evaluation, the first such such 'independent' monitoring of any Millennium Village since the projects began in 2005.

African Agriculture

Ghana: cocoa drip irrigation to combat dry conditions?

 Cocoa is an important crop to the Ghanaian economy, but changing weather patterns that threaten reliable yields are a worry.

Tony Fofie, chief executive officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board, has suggested that drip irrigation is being considered as a recourse, to reduce dependence on rain..

 “The rainfall patterns have actually changed, we risk losing cocoa in periods of drought. We are looking at sinking boreholes within very large farms where we can have drip irrigation for the plants,” he said.

Cocoa production for 2012/13 is forecast at 800,000 tonnes compared to the previous season's all-time high of more than a million tonnes. The drop is partly attributed to less favourable rain.

Most of Ghana's cocoa is produce by scattered small holder farmers, rather than on the kind of large plantations on which irrigation might be consistently possible. It would neither be quick or easy for drip irrigation to be a realistic resort for most farmers.

African Agriculture

Ghanaian cocoa farmers to undergo training

Cargill, multinational company and major purchaser of cocoa, is to partner with the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to train 15,000 farmers in better cultivation methods.

15,000 farmers in the cocoa farming communities of Ashanti and Western regions will participate in the programme designed to help them  'adopt better farming practices so they can improve the quality
and size of their yields,' according to  Cargill official.

The official said, "In farmer field-schools, farmers will receive extensive training to help them rejuvenate cocoa farms and apply best agricultural practices related to pest-control, harvest and post-harvest practices."


Cocobod's extension services will be the project's implementing partner.

 
African Agriculture

Climate change effects on West African cocoa may be coming true much earlier than predicted

A study conducted by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) that was released in September 2011 predicted that in 20 years time climate change could result in conditions that could seriously jeopardize cocoa cultivation in two key growing countries, Ghana and Ivory Coast, which account for more than 50% of global production.

Among other things, the study hypothesized that “an expected annual temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 will leave many of West Africa’s cocoa-producing areas too hot for chocolate.” But it warned that as early as 2030, when annual temperatures are expected to have gone up by one degree Celsius, many of today’s main cocoa-growing areas could be unsuitable for the crop.

The report then went on to suggest a number of coping strategies.

At the time of the report’s release, many people found it somewhat alarmist. Ghana’s Cocoboard was reported to have downplayed it, saying it was confident it had things well in hand for a climate change eventuality.

Yet less than six months after the release of the CIAT report, many of the worrying climate change events which were predicted for many years hence seem to have already hit some of the key cocoa-growing areas, especially in Ivory Coast.

While Ghana is celebrating having produced more than a million tonnes of cocoa in 2011, Ivory Coast’s present cocoa-growing season has been plagued by late-starting and erratic rains with long in-season dry spells that are expected to result in a harvest 8% lower than that of 2011.

It could be a downward blip that could be compensated for by good seasons in coming years> But the signs suggest that it would be prudent to begin to make preparation for the future with the assumption that this year’s unusual-for-Ivory Coast climate is a sign of things to come. It may turn out that the CIAT prediction of a significant climate effect on cocoa harvest by 2030 was not alarmist, but actually optimistic.

Cocoa is so important to the economies of Ghana and Ivory Coast that there is understandable resistance to contemplating a future in which it has a much reduced role, especially when there are no obvious cash crop alternatives to take its place. Besides, it is also tempting to dismiss Ivory Coast’s poorer than normal season as a localized event; especially since rain seasons have been largely normal in cocoa-growing regions of Ghana and Nigeria.

Yet examples from elsewhere in Africa point to adaptation needing to be done with even more urgency than even the experts have warned was necessary.

If the economies of Ghana and Ivory Coast are too dependent on cocoa as a cash crop, many countries in eastern and southern Africa are too reliant on maize as a staple crop. To an even more alarming extent than cocoa in West Africa, these regions have failed to heed the yearly signs that maize-growing is already becoming increasingly unsustainable over an ever-increasing proportion of their climatological zone. The various strategies currently employed to deal with this are unlikely to completely bridge the gap between rising maize needs and declining production.

Alternatives to maize will have to be sought, difficult to fathom or accept as that reality is for many people in these maize-obsessed regions. During Malawi, Zambia and South Africa’s recent string of maize ‘bumper harvests,’ the very suggestion that a future of reduced importance for maize may need to be urgently thought about would have seemed crazy. It probably still does, even as these three countries and several others contemplate possible maize deficits in the next few months. But ready or not, that is a reality that all these countries are going to have to face, perhaps not just ‘soon,’ but now.

Similarly, the reduced Ivorian cocoa harvest is probably a more realistic base from which to think about the crop’s future in West Africa than Ghana’s record harvest in 2011.

All three major West African cocoa-growing countries are taking steps to replace their aging cocoa bushes with newer, ‘improved’ stocks. This has long-needed to be done and will address some of the challenges of declining intrinsic productivity. But like GM maize in the increasingly-unsuitable parts of eastern and southern Africa, this may slightly postpone the day of reckoning for the cultivation of these crops, but not put it off indefinitely.

The problem is these are all approaching realities that no one wants to hear or think about.

African Agriculture

Ghana’s cocoa production tops 1 million tonnes in 2011

Ghana has achieved the long-cherished goal of surpassing one million tonnes of cocoa in a season. The historic figure was realized in 2011, a significant increase from the comparative figure of 680,000 tonnes in 2008.

President John Evans Atta Mills said on February 16 that as of January 2012, Ghanaian farmers were being paid about 80% of the average international cocoa market price of $2,450 per tonne.

Mills said the Ghana Cocoa Board had begun a six-year re-planting programme to rehabilitate old cocoa farms. Farmers are to be given hybrid cocoa seedlings free of charge to improve the country’s planting stock and improve yields.

African Agriculture

AGRA project to improve farmer yields in Ghana begins to bear fruit

by James Karuga

Farmers in Tamale, Northern Ghana are beginning to enjoy the fruits of a three year breadbasket initiative launched in 2010, aimed at doubling yields, increasing the food security and incomes of around 250,000 smallholder farmers, and creating 15,000 jobs in agriculture-related sectors including agro-dealership, marketing, transport, and processing.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is supporting Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to implement the project at community level.

For example, farmers are being taught to plant crops for higher yields: in line and correctly spaced, rather than scattering them randomly. Farmers are also taught about manure, composting, appropriate fertilizers and the quantities to apply. Farmers involved in the initiative are required to have at least one acre of land in order to access credit facilities from the bank to acquire farm inputs, such as fertilizers and quality seed from agro-dealers.

AGRA acts as guarantor for loans and, at harvest, farmers pay for the inputs and services, like ploughing, by selling part of their yield to local traders or markets. Initially, during land preparation, AGRA also strikes a deal with local plough owners paying them directly, so they don't demand payment from farmers who can't afford the service.

When farmers harvest, but are unable to market their produce due to oversupply, they are able to pay off the loan initially advanced to them by giving AGRA part of their harvest, equivalent to the initial loan extended to them as inputs and services. If farmers get low yields and are unable to pay back the loan, either with crop or cash, AGRA doesn't demand payment.

By obtaining bank credit, with support from AGRA, farmers are able to acquire higher yielding non-subsidized seed than the indigenous, low yield varieties they traditionally grow. For example, according to one farmer, Obatampa, a new improved maize seed that's been crossbred with a local variety, yields three to four times more than local indigenous varieties, averaging twelve 90kg bags per acre. It is also fast maturing, taking 110 to 120 days compared to 150 days for local varieties.

To ensure farmers continue to have markets, AGRA is working with bodies…which have market linkages to various purchasing companies. They also provide warehouse facilities for farmer members lacking sufficient quality storage.

The initiative has suffered some setbacks. For instance, some subsidized fertilizer has been smuggled to neighboring Burkina Faso and poor feeder roads are delaying timely delivery of fertilizers.

full article…New Agriculturalist

Ghana exported 62,000 tonnes of bananas to Europe in 2011

Ghana’s 62,000 tonnes of banana exports to the European Union in 2011 was a jump from the previous year’s 52,000 tonnes.

This represents a small slice of the global banana market, and is far less than the quantities exported by African banana export leaders Ivory Coast and Cameroon, according to Food and Agriculture Organization figures.

People in African and Caribbean in 2010 exported a total of 450,000 tonnes, representing 23 per cent of the market share with almost all of the African supply coming from only two sources: Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon ,and marginal quantities originating from Ghana.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics, total export of bananas accounted for 15 million tonnes in 2010 valued at over US$7 billion. The European banana market is the largest in the world, with about 5.5 million tonnes imported per year.

Since 2006 when the European Union (EU) opened its market, there has been a rise in exports of between 2 and 5 percent annually.

Though there are approximately 300 species of bananas, only 20 varieties are commercially cultivated.

Daily Guide

A farmer contrasts his U.S. and Ghana farming experiences

Kristopher Klokkenga is a 32 year old farmer from Emden, Illinois, who has been involved in setting up a new commercial farm in Ghana since 2010.

His clearly written, easy to digest descriptions of his experiences, particularly the differences between the two places, make very interesting reading.

On a trip back to Illinois, he expresses relief at getting a break from Ghana’s mostly all-year round sweltering equatorial heat. He is reminded of how ready access to the latest farming technological gadgets greatly eases harvest on his family’s Illinois farm, compared to his experience harvesting maize in Ghana.

He writes, “Budgets become extremely important to conserve our limited funds. So instead of a importing an expensive combine to use for harvesting our small area, we used a New Idea 325 2RN, the same type of picker that Grandpa used 50 years ago”

On the other hand, he appreciates how the climate in Ghana makes two maize harvests possible in one year.  

more…Growing Pains in Africa

Ghana to seek biotechnology benefits in farming

Ghana’ Agriculture Minister Mr. Kwesi Ahwoi has said the country would pay attention to all areas where biotechnology would be useful to improve productivity.

Ghana would therefore liaise with the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute (BNARI) and other biotechnology based research institutions within and outside the country, to help reap the benefit of biotechnology in our quest for accelerated modernization and commercialization of Ghanaian agriculture without sacrificing bio-safety issues.

In a speech read on his behalf at the First Pan–African Biotechnology Stewardship Conference in a Accra, he said modern biotechnology tools held considerable promise to develop crop varieties and livestock breeds to withstand the stresses.

It was on the theme: "Africa Managing Safe and High-Quality Biotech Crops."

Biotechnology is the use of biological materials to produce or modify products or processes in agriculture or industrial production. Early examples of biotechnology include the making of cheese, wine, and beer, while later development include vaccines, insulin tissues culture and transgenic products (Genetically Modified Organism or GMOs).

Using biotech tools, scientists can identify genes that carry resistance to plants diseases or that which have tolerance for drought, or can resist insect pest. Plant breeder can incorporate these genes into seeds of important food crops, thus proving poor farmers with healthier, more bountiful crops. Mr Ahwoi said in Ghana, where crop production was mainly under rain fed condition within increasing land degradation and low levels of irrigation, climate change could significantly reverse the little progress that had been made towards poverty eradication and food security unless Ghana increased the application of science and technology including biotechnology to improve agriculture productivity.

“Our aim at the ministry of food and Agriculture is to significantly increase crop yields and general agric production through science and technology”

The Agriculture Minister said, “the challenge for Ghana is how to increase yields by increasing fertilizer application, move from rain fed to irrigated agriculture, from one tractor per 1,500 farmers to 500 farmers in medium term and move from head loading of farm produce to the use of mechanized transportation in addition susceptibility of crop varieties to pest and diseases and limited availability of drought tolerant planting material”

Professor Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development at the Imperial College of London said, agriculture was high on the political agenda, as more leaders were recognizing the key role that it could play in addressing many of the world's most pressing problems.

The problem in Africa, he said, was to meet the demand for food and live stock, improving the soil, producing good seed, variety of crops that matured quickly and make them torrent and good market for farmers to sell their product. Dr. Ramadjita Tabo, Executive Director of the Forum for Agriculture Research in Africa (FARA), said their goal was for Africa to use the tools of modern biotechnology on a need basis to address the problem of hunger and malnutrition whilst ensuring environmental sustainability.

“In this regard, we support the mainstreaming of stewardship, the responsibility management of technologies in agric into the conduct of research and deployment of the technology” he said.

He said in spite of the 15 years of successful commercialization of GM crops, progress in the adoption of the technology, had been slow in Africa despite the political will, which now existed in many African countries. “What has been missing so far is the training in the conduct of the business of biotechnology and where the Strengthening Capacity for Safe Biotechnology Management Sub-Saharan Africa (SABIMA) project with emphasis of stewardship comes in”

Prof. Walter Alhassan Coordinator, Project of SABIMA, said the conference would review the three-year SABIMA project, which ended this year and allow the six countries (Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Malawi and Kenya) to tell the rest of the world their successes and challenges and how they had applied the principles of stewardship in Agriculture biotechnology.

He said a special meeting with project countries would be held after the conference to present milestones that were achieved and gaps to be filled, adding that the outcome of the conference would determine the next phase of the project.

Ghanaweb

Ghanaian farmers ask for fertilizer subsidy to be extended

by Laud Nartey

Farmers in Ghana have called for an extension of subsidy on fertilizer by government beyond the 2015 deadline.

In May 2007, government announced the introduction of the subsidy on fertilizer to mitigate the effects of food crisis. It was also a rapid intervention to help increase food production during the peak of the then global crisis that was adversely affecting poor countries.

The Programmes Coordinator of Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Victoria Adongo, explained at a stakeholder roundtable discussion with importers and distributors of fertilizer in Accra last week that there was uncertainty surrounding the life span of the program as sustained funding had become a problem.

"The small scale farmers are demanding that the fertilizer subsidy programme be made comprehensive to include funding, sustainability and as 2015 approaches, small scale farmers are jittery," she stated.

She further explained that in 2009, the PFAG did an impact assessment of the coupon or voucher system of the subsidized fertilizer distribution with the objective of assessing small scale farmers' access to the product.

A number of problems that made the access to fertilizer difficult for rural scale farmers especially women were identified.

On his part, the Director of Agric Extension Service of the Ministry of Agriculture, Justice Amoah, stated that fertilizer application rate in Ghana was one of the lowest in the world. He attributed this to the high cost of fertilizers.

"A bag of 50kg NPK sells at 40 US Dollars," he said. He recalled that in 2008, government subsidized 43,176 metric tons of fertilizer to the tune of GHc 20.654 million, in 2009, a quantity of 72,795 metric tons were subsidized, amounting to GHc 34.4 million and in 2010, a quantity of 91,244 metric tons were subsidized and that also amounted to GHc 30.002 million . Thus a total amount of GHc 85,056million was spent on fertilizer over the three year period.

He disclosed that for the 2011 all categories of crop farmers whether Small, Medium or Large scale farmers have been targeted.

Justice Amoah mentioned cost of subsidy to government, sustainability of the programme with increased demand for more subsidized fertilizers, smuggling of fertilizers to neighboring countries and delays in processing payments as some of the challenges facing the programme.

He advised that government should encourage banks to provide guarantees, and set up more distribution channels in remote areas to increase farmers' access. He also called on government to endeavor to establish a fertilizer production plant in the country to take advantage of the by-product from Ghana's crude oil production.

An importer from Ghana-Agre Input Dealers Association (GAIDA), Afia Owusu Nyantekyi, appealed that publicity on subsidy has to be intensified so that the message could get to all farmers across the country.

"Low publicity is a mojor problem facing the farmers and some importers. Some don't hear the announcement and this is a major challenge," she explained.

allafrica.com

Ghana cocoa industry regulator admits, denies cocoa climate change challenges

                 

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), regulators of the country's cocoa industry, has downplayed the findings of a report which suggests that cocoa production in West African could fall by two per cent as a result of rising temperatures.

The  Public Affairs Manager of the board, Mr Kwesi Amenya said, "the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRlG) has already started developing cocoa plants that are drought-resistant as mitigations against some of these weather changes."

The said report was recently released by the Colombia-based institution International Center for Tropical Agriculture. The report explained that with average temperatures predicted to increase in West Africa by more than one degree celsius by 2030 and two degrees celsius by 2050, "many of the existing cocoa-growing areas will become significantly less suitable for cocoa production."

West Africa produces more than half of the world's cocoa.

The findings of the report come at a time COCOBOD and its stakeholders are patting themselves on the back for having attained a production target of one million tonnes in the 2010/2011 cocoa season, two years into the target year of 2013.

Although the report gave a 20-year period within which cocoa production in the region will begin to fall, industry analysts in the country fear the situation could cripple Ghana's rising production figures currently at a little above one million tonnes.

"Why should we panic?" asked the COCOBOD Public Relations Manager. "We do not know the plans of God regarding climate change; things may get different along the line leading to the report's projected years," Mr Amenya said.

But should the report's projections of "unsustainable conditions" for cocoa productions by 2030 materialise, he added, "our mitigating factors will insulate our farmers from any projected production falls." Amenya explained that while the authors of the report assumed that cocoa trees in the region were not planted under shade, the situation in Ghana was contrary as farmers are constantly encouraged to plant their trees under shade.

"What this means is that Ghana as a cocoa producing country has an upper hand as far as the negative effects of rising temperatures on cocoa are concerned," Mr Amenya claimed.

He, however, admitted that rising temperatures resulting from harsher climatic conditions were a threat to cocoa production in the country. "And that is a worry to COCOBOD because of its impact on the farmers, government's ability to generate income and the economy at large," he said.

Cocoa production currently accounts for 3.4 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Products (GDP) the monetary value of goods and services produced in the country. Consequently, Mr Amenya said the board would intensify its programmes such as reforestation, planting under shades and the like. All are aimed at mitigating the possible effects of rising temperatures on cocoa plantation.

                 

My Joy Online

Crop diversification should be part of dealing with climate change threat to West African cocoa

Climate change may make many parts of West Africa too hot for the growing of cocoa by the year 2050, according to a new report by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The report predicts that the region will experience a one degree Celcius temperature increase by 2030, going up to 2.3 degrees by 2050.

More than 50% of global cocoa is grown by small holder farmers in Ivory Coast and Ghana, with Nigeria also being an important producer.

According to the report, ''Warmer conditions mean the heat-sensitive cocoa trees will struggle to get enough water during the growing season, curtailing the development of cocoa pods, containing the prized cocoa bean – the key ingredient in chocolate production. The trees are also expected to struggle as the region’s dry season becomes increasingly intense.''

Some of these effects are already being seen in marginal cocoa-growing areas, and are expected to spread.

Peter Laderach, the report’s lead author, is quoted as saying, ''These findings are severe but preparation is the name of the game. There is a lot that farmers, governments, scientists – and key players in the cocoa supply chains – can do to help protect and improve cocoa production. But these measures need to be implemented very quickly.”

Among those suggested measures are investments in improved irrigation systems, and scientific research into more heat-tolerant cocoa plant varieties. The report also predicts that the ideal cocoa growing areas will shift to higher altitudes, to compensate for the higher temperatures. However, Laderach points out that west Africa is mostly flat, making this is a limited solution.

Failure to save the cocoa industry would have devastating consequences because of its key role in the lives of farmers and the economies of the major growing countries.  

Africa has recently had experience with other once-dominant crops whose competitiveness has been lost or severely challenged, with disastrous results.

In many countries that grew cotton, the sector  maintains just a small portion of its former glory. Among the reasons are subsidies for cotton growers in major growing countries like the US, China and Brazil as well as lower productivity. Countries in southern and eastern Africa that are suitable for  growing a variety of crops shifted their emphasis to other crops, though the hotter, drier parts that were particularly suitable for cotton often did not find an alternative anywhere as lucrative. 

However, African cotton's problems are close to being perpetual crises in the West African countries where cotton is the main or a major cash crop: Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad and Niger. In these hot, arid Sahelian countries where cotton is as important to the economies as cocoa is to Ivory Coast or Ghana, there is no quick or obvious answer to the decline of the sector. Efforts to improve productivity (eg GM cotton) or seek alternative markets (e.g. organic cotton) are underway, but it is far from clear that they will significantly address the structural problems faced by cotton farming in West Africa.Yet there are no readily, easily available alternative 'cash crops' to cotton in these countries. This may be a slowly unfolding social and economic disaster unfolding disaster before us that no one has yet suggested a viable solution to.

In the relatively few countries that grow it, vanilla was at one time a type of 'white gold' like cotton once was in many others. Madagascar dominated the world vanilla market and sought to maintain that lead position by manipulating production levels to keep volumes produced and exported under control, and to therefore keep global demand and prices high. 

Madagascar's restricted vanilla exports made it possible for competitors with higher prices to find buyers and erode its market share. The overall high world prices for vanilla also kept demand lower than it might have been if the sector were fully 'free.' Madagascar's growing vanilla stocks and declining global position eventually contributed to a decline of prices and the sector, affecting growers in Uganda and other countries that had joined the once-lucrative vanilla bandwagon. Madagascar then instituted a comprehensive reform
of the vanilla sector, but it has never achieved the height of its peak in the 1980s. As in many economies that mainly depend on one or a few commodities, there were no easy alternatives for devastated vanilla farmers to turn to for their livelihood.

Then there is Africa's coming maize disaster, based on the unsustainable over-dependence of many countries on this increasingly Africa-unsuitable crop. If the CIAT cocoa projection has come as a shock, that cannot be said for climate change's effects on the growing of maize. For years African farmers have struggled to maintain already low maize yields. In addition to declining soil fertility has been added the reality of an increasingly maize-unfriendly climate.   

There is a scramble by different interest groups to sell their idea as the answer to this huge, continent-wide calamity-in-development. GM and hybrid maize of various claimed advantages (faster maturing, water efficient, etc) are the mix of solutions being offered. But regardless of how well any or all of these much hyped solutions work according to the parameter set by the promoters who have so much invested in them, no one is able to even guess if they will be up to the task of compensating for climate change-caused reductions in maize growing areas.

If that decline in maize-suitable areas is significant and cannot be offset by higher yields in the remaining maize-suitable areas, maize-preferring Africans will have to find something or other starch crops to 'prefer.' Experience over many previous instances of maize shortages all over the continent suggests that large-scale importation of maize is simply not a realistic solution.

The work of thinking of, trying and beginning to market those probably inevitably needed maize alternatives is too important to be left until the crisis gets much worse. It should start now.

A similar diversification urgency may be called for in response to the warnings about the likely effects of climate change on growing cocoa in West Africa. As the examples given here illustrate, it is far from certain that efforts to ''protect and improve cocoa production'' will be successful. Apart from the many technical, capacity and many other problems that plague African agriculture in general, no one can accurately predict the exact levels of the forecast temperature changes, nor their effects on the ability to cultivate cocoa.If both are more severe than predicted, the impact would be extremely serious for the global chocolate industry, but catastrophic for the countries and farmers affected. The examples of other once lucrative crops in other parts of Africa show, however, that those catastrophic effects may be far from easy to avoid.

Cocoa was an introduced cash crop that unlike many others has more or less consistently had an assured global market and good reasonably good returns even for the farmers who are at the bottom of the supply chain in terms of benefit per effort. It would be far from easy to find a crop with anywhere near the same combination of economic qualities. Yet if cocoa climate change-coping strategies in West Africa do not also at least include diversification away from over-reliance on this so far successful crop, economic disasters that have taken place elsewhere when the main cash crop collapses can be predicted.

African Agriculture   

Ghana: 110 combine harvesters for Northern Region rice farmers

The Ghanaian government has delivered 110 combine harvesters for distribution to farmers across the Northern Region to improve rice farms.

The machines, which come in addition to 18 larger combined harvesters distributed last year, are expected to reach the farmers early enough for the harvest season next month.

The Northern Regional Director of Agriculture, Mr Joseph Faalong,said that although the region would need more such harvesters, the latest addition would help the farmers a great deal to harvest their crops before they experienced any worse form of flooding.

Rice production in the region is expected to go up this year, following various interventions by the government and development partners under the Breadbasket project, an agricultural productivity programme for the northern part of the country.

Last year, the government subsided 100,000 tonnes of fertilisers to farmers, out of which the Northern Region consumed 39 per cent. This year, 150,000 tonnes would be subsidised to benefit more farmers who, agricultural experts in the north said, were gradually waking up to its importance in increasing yields.

With the subsidies, the farmers purchase the fertilisers for GH¢30 instead of the non-sibsidised price of GH¢45.

About 70 per cent of the total land mass of the Northern Region, measuring about 4.9 million hactares, is arable but only about 800,000 hectares (representing 16 per cent) is under cultivation, in spite of the availability of water resources in the area. About 10 per cent of the Volta Lake lies within the region to the benefit of some 210 communities.

Modern Ghana

Ghana cocoa authority receives $2 billion loan for purchases

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has clinched a record loan deal of $2 billion for the purchase of cocoa and other cocoa-related activities.

The signing ceremony took place in London where earlier this year, top officials of COCOBOD met to make presentations to major banks to secure the loan. Over 80 banks, most of them from Europe, played diverse roles to make the deal possible. They include Citi Bank, HSBC Bank, Bank of Tokyo/Mitsubishi, UniCredit Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Ghana International Bank and Societe Generale, among others.

Seventy per cent of the Free On Board (FOB) amount will directly go to farmers in terms of produce prices.

According to the Deputy Chief Executive of the COCOBOD, Mr William Mensah, the remaining 30 per cent will go into the expansion of the cocoa industry.

He explained that there was the need to build and rehabilitate feeder roads in the cocoa growing areas, to allocate money for a farmers' pension scheme and scholarships for wards of cocoa farmers, as well also improve cocoa seeds and introduce improved varieties.

Mr Mensah said part of the 30 per cent would go to the government by way of export duties among others.

myjoyonline.com

Problems affecting development of Ghana's tomato processing sector

Despite a large and growing output of tomatoes in Ghana, the manufacturing industry has been unable to leverage the crop, leaving the industrial sector import-burdened to the detriment of local agricultural producers.

"Northern Star Tomato factory to close down.” This is just one of the recent headlines in the local media about the fate of the government-owned factory. The processing plant, based in Pwalugu, a small town in Ghana’s Upper East region, has in the last couple of years repeatedly proved unable to function efficiently due, shockingly, to an inadequate supply of its main raw material - tomatoes.

Northern Star has had a slightly convoluted ownership past. Formerly Pwalugu Tomato Factory, it was one of the three state-owned tomato processing plants set up in the 1960s as part of Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah’s development plan for the country. The other two processing factories set up in Pwalugu were the GIHOC Tomato Cannery (TOMCAN) in Wenchi in the Brong Ahafo region, and the GIHOC Cannery in Nsawam, a town near Accra.

After the IMF and World Bank-led Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) of the 1980s, the government was forced to sell or privatise most of its corporations.

The Pwalugu Tomato Factory somehow managed to remain under state control, which led to more years of atrophy and eventually complete closure.

However, when the tomato processing companies shut down, as part of the conditionality set by the multilaterals, the Ghanaian government abolished import quotas in 1992. This increased competition from foreign tomato processing firms. Their products were much more competitive because European foodstuffs are highly subsidised, to the tune of €250 million a year.

In 2006, the Ministry of Trade and Industry announced a policy hinged on promoting equitable regional development that envisaged at least one manufacturing plant in each Ghanaian district. As such, a small local company, Northern Star, bought the tomato plant to strengthen its partnership with Italian food processing and packaging company, Trusty Foods.

However, operations turned sour and the plant closed down again a year later, despite significant investment in equipment and machinery and land for tomato growing. In 2010, the plant reopened with a new investor but seemed beset by the same troubles it ran into previously, threatening closure for the third time.

Tomato farming is predominantly undertaken in northern Ghana, around the surrounding areas of Bolgatanga. As it was (and continues to be) one of the poorest regions in the country, in 1975 the Acheampong military government began constructing the Tono irrigation dam in the Upper East region to encourage farmers to produce food and cash crops.

According to Accra-based non-governmental organisation Third World Network in an April 2006 study, carried out in collaboration with the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), the Tono dam is one of the biggest agricultural dams in West Africa. It covers 3,600 hectares and provides 2,400 hectares of irrigated land for cultivation. The dam has greatly benefited small scale farmers in the region as it enables them to farm all year round. The tomato is a key northern crop, identified in the study as being more profitable than rice, maize and groundnuts.

Ghana seems increasingly incapable of producing canned tomato products. The finger pointing flies in many directions, but lack of farmer incentives get the most blame.

One problem, which the Tono dam was built to mitigate, is the seasonal nature of the tomato crop. Large quantities of tomatoes are produced between November and March but, once the season is over, cultivation of tomatoes is significantly scaled back, especially in areas outside the radius of the dam and other water sources. This makes the input for canneries unreliable and forces them to rely on imports to fill any gaps.

Another issue has to do with quality and lack of storage facilities. The processing factories often reject tomatoes that they feel are unsuitable for processing and, because there is no proper storage system, surplus tomatoes are left to rot. Moreover, Northern Star, for example, was infamous for having an insufficient number of tomato crates and inadequate transport to move them from the farm to the processing plant. This again discourages large-scale production.

Although the practice is on the rise in many regions of Ghana, not all tomato farmers are organised into cooperatives, and even when these exist, they lack the bargaining power to negotiate off-take contracts. Prior to most of them being privatised or shut down, the processing factories engaged some farmers to provide tomatoes at a contracted price.

However, even this caused problems in the larger cities because, according to research by ICCO, a faith-based development organisation, the presence of the factories undermined the bargaining power of the Accra women traders. Known as ‘market queens’, they also bought tomatoes directly from farmers but could only transact with those who were not tied to contracts with the factories.

Tomato farmers have a ready market in the market queens, who are willing to buy the tomatoes at a higher price than that typically offered by factory management.

Differentials between the factory-offered price and market prices can be as much as 300%. There is usually a fixed price set by the government but farmers complain that factory management sometimes renegotiate prices that fall below the set rate. Plant managers, however, defend the need to renegotiate in the event of inferior quality produce.

The ‘market queens’ are said to now bypass the local market altogether because of this and go as far as neighbouring Burkina Faso to buy tomatoes. This has also added to the woes of local farmers, especially in the northern regions.

Ghana Biz Media

Ghanaian irrigation project gets Korean grant

Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Korean Rural Community Corporation on August 24 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a $2.173 million dollar grant to help expand the Akomadan Project in the Ashanti Region.

The grant will enable the ministry to expand the irrigable land area in the Akomadan Irrigation Project by 100 hectares, and also provide technical assistance in improving productivity in vegetables.

The potential irrigable area of the Akomadan Irrigation project is 1,000 hectares, but the current area under usage is 65 hectares. This is expected to increase to 165 hectares with the coming on board of this project.

The project is also expected to make farm lands available to more farmers to produce commercial vegetables for both the local and export markets and increase volumes, especially for tomato to meet the raw material needs of tomato processing factories within the catchment area.

Government of Ghana