An official at the Ministry of Foods and Agriculture, Edwina Quist says as part of measures in activating sustainable agriculture in Ghana, stakeholders should promote the development of land use plans.
Miss Quist addressing participants at IUCN’s Dialogue on Sustainable Agriculture Practices in Ghana, explained that the lack of land use plans makes “people encroach on lands that are meant for agriculture to transform their built-up environment”.
This has an adverse impact where “farmers have to resort to using mangrove lands. And you have to do a lot of work to get mangrove lands to a state where you can get productivity.”
She called for a reformation of the land tenure system in Ghana as farmers don’t own lands and “when you don’t own land, you cannot put in place sustained measures to get sustained results. For sustainable agriculture, you have to put in measures for a long time to see results.”
An Oxford Business Group in its 2022 report stated that Ghana’s agriculture sector is “dominated by small, traditional, family-run farms. Under this structure, farmers often produce small surpluses, while their access to capital and machinery remains limited”.
Hence government has “prioritized increasing productivity and access to finance – whether through digital or conventional offerings – while developing both hard and soft rural infrastructure”.
Responding to the lack of Agriculture Extension Agents (AEA) at IUCN’s 3rd LOGMe Project National Review Meeting and Stakeholders’ Dialogue on Sustainable Agriculture Practices in Ghana, Miss Quist explained that “it used to be one extension agent to 1,500 farmers. But the ministry, about five years ago, did some recruitment and now it’s paired with an AEA to 1,000 farmers, which is too large. For the extension volunteer training, that is under a project. So, the main ministry is not intervening in that area.”
The Food and Agriculture in Ghana proposed in its 2017 policy paper to Ghana on reforming the agriculture sector advised the government among other things to “improve public expenditure allocation and management as well as budget coordination in agriculture. Also, improve the collection and analysis of agricultural statistics to produce high-quality and credible data for sector planning on a regular basis. MoFA should improve the efficiency and effectiveness of input subsidy programs and fix gaps in input supply legislation.”