No food security, no industrialisation

…STEPRI boss declares
…As AGRA supports smallholder farmers to adapt to climate change

The contribution of smallholder farmers includes vegetables

 The Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has outdoored an agro-based project, seeking to enhance the ability of smallholder farmers , especially women, to cope with extreme weather conditions such as drought and severe flooding.

It is hoped that the project, which is supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), will help improve food security and reduce income volatility for smallholder farmers thus contributing towards the country’s economic growth.
“If Ghana wants industrialisation we must first ensure food security,” advised Dr George Essegbey, Director of CSIR-STEPRI, who was speaking at an inception workshop organised last Friday in Accra to introduce the project to a number of stakeholders, including media practitioners.
Dr Essegbey continued that “No hungry nation can ever attain industrialisation.” Rather, a nation must first attain food sufficiency and then be able to sell excess food to other countries before setting itself on the path to industrialisation.
A new challenge to this is the climate change phenomenon, which scientists say will have severe impact on Africa, especially the continent’s agricultural sector. Confirming, Dr Essegbey stated: “The agricultural sector is one of the most susceptible to climate change.”
Ghana’s agricultural sector is dominated by smallholder farmers who contribute about 80 per cent of the sector’s output. Further analysis of the sector shows that the smallholder sub-sector is dominated by women farmers who are estimated to be among those most susceptible to climate change.
It is within this context that the CSIR-STEPRI has come together with other actors and is being supported by AGRA to implement the smallholder farmers’ project which is titled: “Enhancing the Adaptation of Smallholder Farmers, especially women, to Climate Change for Improved Agricultural Production in Ghana.” 
“The overall goal of the project is to improve food security and reduce income volatility for smallholder farmers by enhancing their adaptation to climate change and variability in the breadbasket regions of Ghana,” according to Dr Nelson Obirih-Opareh, Coordinator of the Project.
He also mentioned that the project has four objectives around which a total of 19 activities have been developed to lead to various outcomes.
Meanwhile, the collaborating institutions in the implementation of the project are the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness of the University of Ghana, Environmental Protection Agency, Conservation Alliance, Development Institute, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, and Care International.
Dr Kehinde Makinde, AGRA Ghana representative, praised Ghana for maintaining a strong focus on food security but was worried by changing climatic conditions which hamper the ability of farmers to predict the planting season.
In view of this, he assured that AGRA would continue its support for various interventions in Ghana and would particularly work at improving productivity and income of farmers.
 This was written for the "Understanding Climate Change" column of the Public Agenda and published today, Monday December 3, 2012. You may visit www.publicagendaghana.com for more.