The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a new, universal set of goals, targets and indicators that UN member states including Ghana will be expected to use to frame their agendas and political policies by the year 2030. The SDGs adopted follow and expand on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were agreed by governments in 2001 and ended in 2016.
Sustainable Development Goal 2 talks about ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture. For this Goal, member states including Ghana have targets to ensure that there is no hunger by the year 2030.
The three regions of the North continue to experience food insecurity and malnutrition. The Upper East region for instance, remains the region with the highest proportion of food insecurity where 27 percent of households are at risk of hunger.
People in many communities in the region still live below three square meals a day with children being the worst affected. Not only they do not enough food to eat but also, food is often not available for them to feed on at the needed time.
People in the region however rely on farming to achieve food security. However, farming is no more lucrative due to decreasing yields every year. The lack of resources for farmers to do large scale farming, coupled with the use of unapproved methods of farming largely account for the low yields – the effect of which are food insecurity and hunger.
Planting for food and jobs
It is against this backdrop that the ‘Planting for food and jobs’ initiative started by government this year, has restored the lost hopes of farmers in the Upper East region and the country at large. The initiative aims at increasing agriculture yields and ensuring sustainable supply of food at cheaper costs while creating jobs for Ghanaians.
Under the program, farmers are being supported with improved seeds and fertilizers to help transform the country’s agriculture sector. President of Ghana, His Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo who launched the program was optimistic the program will increase food production.
The initiative will, in the long term, contribute to ending hunger and for that matter, help Ghana to achieve SDG 2.
Fall armyworm invasion
However, it suffered a setback due to the invasion of a pest known as the fall armyworm. According to Upper East regional Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Officer, Patrick Yensingit over 11,000 hectares of farmlands in the region were affected by the pest. Nonetheless, Mr. Yensingit stated the effects of the pest of farms will not affect yields because “the crops have recovered”
1996 National Best Farmer, George Stanley Alokodongo who is also from the Upper East region shares same view. “If we would have had about 98 percent production [and] because of the armyworm we might get about 90 or 85 percent. Regardless, we will still make a bumper harvest”
But 2016 Second National Best farmer, Ariku Martin Akudugu, based in the Binduri district in the region thinks otherwise. He fears a severe drought which occurred this year in the region will affect the food yields in the region.
Some farmers in Bolgatanga municipality, Bongo district, Bawku municipality, Pusiga district and Kasena-Nankana West districts said due to the fall armyworm’s havoc on crops and drought in the region, the ‘planting for food and jobs’ program will not be the solution to reducing hunger in the Upper East region this year.
But Bongo district director of Agriculture Drah Edgar disagrees. “Left with the armyworm a lone I will say the production will still be high.” Mr. Drah was quick to add that the drought in the region is likely going to affect production.
Storage
One of the many factors that contribute to food insecurity is lack of storage facilities. Most farmers in the region resort to storing their farm produce in bans, and other traditional methods that expose their foodstuffs to pests.
It is against this backdrop that the planting for food and jobs program promised to construct 1,000 metric tons capacity warehouses in each of the 216 districts of the country. At the time of filing this report no single warehouse was constructed in the Upper East region under the program.
Farmers bemoan that the unavailability of enough storage facilities could contribute to food loses in the region.
“If you don’t get very nice storage area then definitely weevils and other things will go back and it will affect production” according to George Stanley Alokodongo.
Another farmer, Bruce Akolgo said “we have to sell our produce fast fast and then store what remains”
But Safia Yakubu, deputy monitoring and evaluation officer in charge of the planting for food and jobs program in the region said the few existing warehouses will be made available while plans to renovate some others roll out.
Poor road network linking farms
The Upper East region in 2016 recorded over 13, 000 tons of maize losses being the second region to have recorded the highest postharvest loss.
Among factors that contributed to the losses included poor road networks linking farms to district capitals in the region. The Bongo district is one of the districts in the region with lack of accessible road networks.
District Chief Executive of Bongo, Peter Ayinbisa admitted that “the road network in Bongo is nothing to write home about and these roads leads to the farmlands. So the road networks is going to hinder the transportation of farm produce from wherever they are being cultivated to the district capital”
According to him plans are far advanced to expand feeder roads in the district to mitigate postharvest losses.
Available Market
To ensure that farmers earn higher incomes from their produce, Safia Yakubu, deputy monitoring and evaluation officer of Upper East regional department of agriculture in charge of the planting for food and jobs program allayed fears of unavailable markets to adsorb the produce. She said, the Ghana School Feeding program which promises of local content is ready to purchase foodstuff from the farmers.
Ending stunting
In order to end stunting and malnutrition among children in the region, Upper East Regional Coordinator of Ghana School Feeding Program, Georgina Ayamba promised to ensure that nutritious meals are provided to children in the beneficiary schools. “The food that they [caterers] are preparing is nutritious food and I know that with time all this issues of stunting growth will be a thing of the past”
Recommendation
In order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 through the ‘planting for food and jobs’ program, government should begin to adopt measures to combat the fall armyworm in years to come, if there are more invasions.
The lack of adequate Agriculture Extension Officers and unavailable logistics to combat the worm also contributed the destruction of farms by the pests. In this regard government should consider lifting the ban on employment especially in the agriculture sector, while supplying logistics to the sector so that food security can be achieved and sustained.
Available storage facilities should be constructed to meet the demand of farmers in order to prevent postharvest losses.
Government should provide accessible road networks linking farms to warehouses and market centers and ensure the availability of farm start-up capitals to make the agriculture sector attractive to the youth.
This feature is written by Joshua Asaah with funding support from the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and UNDP-Ghana.
