Government urged to design policies to improve agric

Government has been urged to design national strategies and formulate policies for farmers to enable them to adopt conservative agricultural practices, which are climate resilient.

Madam Jocelyn G. Brown Hall, the Deputy Regional Representative for Africa of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) speaking at an inception meeting on Conservation Agriculture (CA)said stakeholders in the Agric sector should implement suitable crops policy to improve production systems that were resilient within the social, economic and cultural context under current climate conditions.

The meeting was organised by FAO in collaboration with the Ghana Agricultural Sector Investment Programme (GASIP) to enhance food security in the country.

The meeting, supported by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and International Fund for Agricultural Development was to improved soil productivity and conservation over the years, which had proven to be a viable approach.

Madam Hall said two related projects on Conservation Agriculture (CA) practices, Adoption and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) would strengthen the capacity of farmers, farmers groups, non –state actors and state actors.

According to her, the projects would also promote economic, agronomic and environmental benefits, to improve soil productivity in the agricultural sector.

She said as part of the projects, there would be training materials and guides that would be used in agricultural universities curricula to create awareness among researchers and policymakers.

Mr Alabira Ibrahim, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager of GASIP said the project would be contributing to the sustainable poverty reduction in the country, especially in the rural areas.

He said GASIP and FAO Ghana have signed an agreement to begin the implementation of the first activity, which was profiling and characterization for CA for 2019.

He said the stakeholders of the projects have put measures in place to provide an appropriate CA model to promote smallholders farmers in the savannah and Transitional agro-ecological zones.

Mr Seth Osei-Akoto, the Directorate of Crop Services of Ministry of Food and Agriculture in a speech read on his half, said the project would enhance climate-smart technologies in fishery and livestock.

He said the projects would also address land degradation and reduced land productivity resulting from unsustainable agricultural practices.