Africa RISING,one of the current projects being undertaken by CSIR–STEPRI, has organised a workshop to share results of the research and create space for stakeholders to share their insights on sustainable intensification and also validate the research results.Knowledge sharing and validation workshop.
The increasing depletion of land, water and soil fertility have impacted negatively on agricultural productivity in Ghana, leading to high rates of hunger and malnutrition. These challenges require sustainable transformations in the entire food value chain system. This value chain transformation can be achieved through sustainable intensification agriculture, which is driven by an enabling policy agenda. However, there are indications of low adoption of sustainable intensification technologies and practices, largely related to the extent to which national agricultural policy and programme strategies are implemented at the household level.
There is limited information on the extent to which current agricultural policies and programmes in Ghana create opportunities for promoting sustainable intensification technologies and practices. In line with this void in information, the CSIR-Science and Technology Policy Research Institute, under the IITA’s Africa RISING West Africa project (funded by Feed the Future, USAID), sought to identify sustainable intensification gaps and/or dysfunctionalities in existing agricultural policies and programmes at the national, district and farmer household levels in Ghana; as well as map potential stakeholders for possible upscaling of validated sustainable intensification technologies for farmers.
The results presented suggest that, all the reviewed agricultural policies and programmes do not have sustainable intensification as a core agenda or strategy. However, each policy document and/or programme strategy generally addresses a specific aspect (genetic, ecological and socio-economic) of sustainable intensification. At the district level, the implementation of sustainable intensification technologies are mainly done under development partners’ programmes or projects. The district agriculture office mandated to implemented policy strategies of government was found not to be effectively implementing sustainable intensification technologies for farm households due to lack of logistics. Development partner organisations implementing sustainable intensification projects were mapped as high interest, high influence stakeholders for the upscaling of technologies and practices in the agricultural sector.
Stakeholders at the workshop generally accepted that the results presented by the research team was a true reflection of what pertains within the policy formulation and implementation contexts of the agricultural sector. Overall, the stakeholders validated the results as of high evidence and therefore highly accepted.