Situational analysis study for the agriculture sector in Ghana

Agriculture is important for Ghana’s economy and the livelihoods of the majority of the rural population even though its level of contribution to GDP is declining. Its importance is not only in terms of the contribution to food and nutrition security, but also in providing a basis for agro-industrial activities and for exports. It provides jobs and livelihoods to a significant proportion of the population especially in the rural areas. Farmers cultivate major staples such as maize, cassava, yam, plantain, sorghum and rice. The cash crops grown include cocoa, oil palm, cashew and rubber among others. Ghana’s 2019 annual growth rate for agriculture was 4.6%. The crop sub-sector is the largest in the agricultural sector followed by livestock and fisheries. The impacts of climate change on agriculture are not just projected but are real. The sector is currently contending against erratic rainfall patterns, water stress, desertification/ degradation of ecological systems/ forest degradation; increasing temperatures; and disruption of seasonality. Climate change affects agricultural activities in diverse ways including changes in the onset of the rainy season, increase incidence and frequency in some regions, increase in post-harvest losses of agricultural commodities, decline in the availability and quality of forage and high mortality and morbidity of livestock. Managing the impacts of climate change is important in addressing the challenge of enhancing productivity in the agricultural sector. It is a multi-dimensional challenge; hence solutions must emanate from the identifiable components of the environment. Agriculture is given a high priority in Ghana’s political and socio-economic discourse with the President highlighting the agricultural programme of PFJ as the flagship of his government. The various national policy documents including the national development framework have underscored the importance of the agricultural sector. However, there is need to enhance policy coherence and strengthen policy implementation along the governance structures from the national through the regional to the municipal and district assemblies. Farmers and women must have stronger voices at the district level to articulate better their concerns. Besides, Ghana’s national budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector is still below the target of the Maputo Declaration at about 9.7% currently. However, the on-going programmes such as the PFJ and its constituent modules are likely to increase it. The funding from multi- and bilateral sources are also likely to increase agricultural expenditures. The key recommendations proposed include creating an enabling legal, institutional and policy framework to create a favorable environment for enhancing policy coherence and strengthening policy implementation along the governance structures from the national to regional through to the municipal and district assemblies. It is also important to increase national budgetary and finance flows from bilateral and multi-lateral sources into the agriculture sector to promote widespread adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA). Investments should take into account gender and youth considerations, supported by a strong extension services system. Farmers’ adoption of CSA is an important intervention area that economic planning must cater for. Market access and access to financial resources to finance their agricultural activities in crops, livestock, fishery and agroforestry, are crucial. Government must consider, adopt and implement this recommendation in collaboration with other stakeholders

Using CERES-maize and ENSO as decision support tools to evaluate climate-sensitive farm management practices for maize production in the northern regions of Ghana

Open Access JournalMaize (Zea mays) has traditionally been a major cereal staple in southern Ghana. Through breeding and other crop improvement efforts, the zone of cultivation of maize has now extended to the northern regions of Ghana which, hitherto, were the home to sorghum and millet as the major cereals. Maize yield in the northern Ghana is hampered by three major biophysical constraints, namely, poor soil fertility, low soil water storage capacity and climate variability. In this study we used the DSSAT crop model to assess integrated water and soil management strategies that combined the pre-season El-Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-based weather forecasting in selecting optimal planting time, at four locations in the northern regions of Ghana. It could be shown that the optimum planting date for a given year was predictable based on February-to-April (FMA) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomaly for the locations with R2 ranging from 0.52 to 0.71. For three out of four locations, the ENSO-predicted optimum planting dates resulted in significantly higher maize yields than the conventional farmer selected planting dates. In Wa for instance, early optimum planting dates were associated with La Nina and El Niño (Julian Days 130-150; early May to late May) whereas late planting (mid June to early July) was associated with the Neutral ENSO phase. It was also observed that the addition of manure and fertilizer improved soil water and nitrogen use efficiency, respectively, and minimized yield variability, especially when combined with weather forecast. The use of ENSO-based targeted planting date choice together with modest fertilizer and manure application has the potential to improve maize yields and also ensure sustainable maize production in parts of northern Ghana

Weather-index based crop insurance as a social adaptation to climate change and variability in the Upper West Region of Ghana: Developing a participatory approach

Climate change and variability are major challenges to rain-fed crop production in Africa. This paper presents a report on a pilot project to test a concept for operationalizing weatherindex crop insurance as a social adaptation to the climate change and variability problem in the Upper West Region of Ghana. An analysis of long-term weather variables showed rising temperature of 1.7 oC over a period of 53 years as well as major shifts in rainfall patterns. Farmers face a new reality that cannot be addressed with their indigenous knowledge alone. The weather-index based crop insurance concept discussed herein was developed by combined effort of University of Ghana, the German International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Ghana National Insurance Commission (NIC) since 2010. This development was carried out via their filial, the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP). The proposed concept sought to link various agricultural stakeholders such weather technical persons, farmers, agricultural extension officer, input dealers and other aggregators, and financial institutions as well as the insurance industry and focused on a participatory farmer led approach. The piloting of the concept was supported by the Climate Change and Food Security (CCAFs) project and was tested in the years 2012 and 2013 using a theatrical drama sketch in two districts in the Upper West Region of Ghana: Jirapa and Lawra. It was observed that training of farmers in the basic principles of weather (data collection, interpretation, etc.) facilitated the discussions on drought insurance, adding to the body of evidence supporting participatory design tools. The aim of this paper is to record this process and to put the results into recent context, through discussing them through the lens of insurance operations and research in Ghana. Ensuing discussions showed that although all stakeholders considered the participatory design tools to be meritorious, a number of logistical challenges were identified that need to be addressed for effective scaling. The study also highlighted the high spatial variability of rainfall in the Upper West region of Ghana, showing the necessity of satellite-derived rainfall products. Finally, the framework suggested in this report highlights the complexity and the institutional structures required to implement an effective insurance. In effect, our simple study has exposed the complexities and intricacies that must be overcome in establishing a sustainable insurance scheme in Ghana

Evaluating maize yield variability and gaps in two agroecologies in northern Ghana using a crop simulation model

Article purchased; Published online: 19 Oct 2017The yield gap and variability in maize under smallholder systems in two agroecologies in northern Ghana were evaluated using a decision support system for agrotechnology transfer (DSSAT). The model was used to assess (1) the potential yield of maize (YPOT), (2) water-limited exploitable maize yield (YWEX), (3) nitrogen-limited yield (YNI), (4) farmer practice maize yield (YCFP) and (5) proposed enhanced nutrient use yield (enhanced farmer practice; YEFP). Effect of supplementary irrigation was also assessed on YCFP and YEFP conditions. Yield gaps were determined as the difference between YPOT and YCFP or YEFP on the one hand, and between YWEX and YCFP or YEFP on the other hand. The yield gap based on potential yield ranged from 59% to 75% under CFP and narrowed to between 29% and 59% under EFP. With water-limited exploitable yields, the yield gap ranged from 53% to 65% under CFP, reducing to between 22% and 42% under EFP. The use of supplementary irrigation further reduced the yield gap. Improved fertiliser use and supplementary irrigation have the potential to increase yield and hence reduce the yield gap if effective policies and institutional structures are in place to provide farmers with credit facilities and farm inputs

Location, biophysical and agronomic parameters for croplands in northern Ghana

Smallholder agriculture is the bedrock of the food production system in sub-Saharan Africa. Yields in Africa are significantly below potentially attainable yields for a number of reasons, and they are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Monitoring of these highly heterogeneous landscapes is needed to respond to farmer needs, develop an appropriate policy and ensure food security, and Earth observation (EO) must be part of these efforts, but there is a lack of ground data for developing and testing EO methods in western Africa, and in this paper, we present data on (i) crop locations, (ii) biophysical parameters and (iii) crop yield, and biomass was collected in 2020 and 2021 in Ghana and is reported in this paper. In 2020, crop type was surveyed in more than 1800 fields in three different agroecological zones across Ghana (the Guinea Savannah, Transition and Deciduous zones). In 2021, a smaller number of fields were surveyed in the Guinea Savannah zone, and additionally, repeated measurements of leaf area index (LAI) and leaf chlorophyll concentration were made on a set of 56 maize fields. Yield and biomass were also sampled at harvesting. LAI in the sampled fields ranged from 0.1 to 5.24 m2 m−2, whereas leaf chlorophyll concentration varied between 6.1 and 60.3 µg cm−2. Yield varied between 190 and 4580 kg ha−1, with an important within-field variability (average per-field standard deviation 381 kg ha−1). The data are used in this paper to (i) evaluate the Digital Earth Africa 2019 cropland masks, where 61 % of sampled 2020/21 cropland is flagged as cropland by the data set, (ii) develop and test an LAI retrieval method from Earth observation Planet surface reflectance data (validation correlation coefficient R=0.49, root mean square error (RMSE) 0.44 m2 m−2), (iii) create a maize classification data set for Ghana for 2021 (overall accuracy within the region tested: 0.84), and (iv) explore the relationship between maximum LAI and crop yield using a linear model (correlation coefficient R=0.66 and R=0.53 for in situ and Planet-derived LAI, respectively). The data set, made available here within the context of the Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative, is an important contribution to understanding crop evolution and distribution in smallholder farming systems and will be useful for researchers developing/validating methods to monitor these systems using Earth observation data. The data described in this paper are available from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6632083 (Gomez-Dans et al., 2022)