Editorial (The Daily Searchlight, Wednesday, 22nd June 2022)
The CSIR-Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI) says the adoption of technology and farm services support is woefully inadequate in Ghana.
It said this, therefore, had little or no significant impact on the agriculture sector.
Dr Richard Ampadu-Ameyaw, a Senior Research Scientist at CSIR-STEPRI, was speaking at a stakeholder engagement. He called for more exploration to adopt and use or even invest in such support service.
He said that this will help boost agriculture and enable the country to achieve some of the SDGs easily.
Dr Ampadu-Ameyaw said this when he presented a research paper on the “Effective supply of farm services as a tool for addressing disadoption and discontinuous use of Sustainable Intensification Practices (SIP).”
The workshop was on the theme: “Effective Partnerships for effective uptake of SI technologies, Innovations and practices: Role of Farmers, Research and other private and public sectors.”
Over the past five years, Ghana has been implementing two major agricultural programs, the “Planting for Food and Jobs’ Policy, and the ‘Rearing for Food and Jobs’ policy.
Both policies are aimed at boosting the nation’s ability to feed itself and to create jobs through jobs at the same time.
Such policies, implemented on a large scale, would require the use of extension and support services from inception to conclusion, to have any chance of succeeding.
We are frankly intrigued, in the light of the information coming from CSIR, how the government managed to implement its two flagship policies with limited or non-existent support services.
Indeed, if the information coming out of CSIR is true, then one must begin to understand why many believe that the results off the two policies has been wishy washy at best.
We believe that the Minister has a duty to seriously consider the report coming from CSIR, to find out whether the two major policies in Agriculture he implemented were properly executed.
