The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has emphasized the need for government to engage with farmers directly in order to help them take advantage of existing opportunities in the agriculture sector as well as create new ones through engagements.
In an address at the third edition of a national dialogue under the auspices of the Ghana Federation of Forest and Farm Producers, National Facilitator of Forest and Farm Facility, Elvis Kuudaar, indicated that it is time for the relevant government agencies to share information with farmers on developing actionable plans to help farmers survive climate change.
He said “the government has rolled out a number of initiatives relating to climate change and also access to finance and social protection as well as access to market. Most of these programmes have achieved some successes, but we have some major challenges where some of these farmers are unable to access these existing opportunities.”
“So this provides an opportunity for government agencies to be able to explain what the requirements are and collectively can agree on an action plan to support GhaFFaP members to meet this requirement and be able to become partners and not beneficiaries to some of these government interventions,” Mr. Kuudaar added.
While talking about the purpose of the event, the Vice President of the Ghana Federation of Forest and Farm Producers, Halima Saeed revealed that it was aimed at creating a platform to enable farmers to network with financial institutions and learn new marketing skills.
“We are here because issues of access to credit have been very critical, issues of a market for our producer organisations, marketing at the right places for the right prices has been very intentional. We think that a forum like this will create that opportunity for discussion,” she stated.
Meanwhile, a former Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Agyei Yeboah revealed that farmers through the dialogue were taken through effective ways to properly market themselves and highlight their significance to the ecosystem.
“This dialogue sought to develop actionable plans, what our interests are, what we want to achieve, find ways to articulate them to our stakeholders for better appreciation so they can support us,” he said.
Climate change unpredictability has impacted a number of agriculture and forest-based value chains, causing poverty, a lack of access to healthy food, and deforestation, among other things.
In order to assist farmers in adapting to climate change, the Ghana Federation of Forest and Farm Producers implemented the GhaFFaP Innovative Climate Action, which transforms the difficulties in Ghana’s dry savanna landscape into opportunities. The GhaFFaP Agenda 2030 aims to strengthen community inclusion, combat poverty, and support climate resilience.
