Consolidating agricultural productivity through efficient innovation platforms

Ghana has developed over 30 agricultural technologies since the West African Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP) was initiated in 2007.

WAAPP’s development objective is to generate and disseminate improved technologies in the country’s top priority commodities in root and tuber crops, specifically, cassava, yam, sweet potato and cocoyam.

WAAPP Ghana has the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as its implementing agency.

Under the implementation of the first phase of the Programme, researchers at the CSIR-Crops Research Institute in Kumasi – the designated National Centre of Specialization – have developed diverse crop varieties and agricultural technologies.

However, the rate of transfer and adaptation of these technologies remains low along the agricultural value chain, observed Augustine Danquah of WAAPP’s Coordination Unit at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

This is because the project did not develop a comprehensive action plan to scale up technologies and best practices during the implementation of the first phase.

Director of CSIR-CRI, Dr. Stella Ennin, has acknowledged there have been gaps in previous participatory approaches to research.

She says the previous approach placed emphasis on farmers and extension whilst others in the value chain were placed in the background.

Adopting the innovation platform and Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IR4D) approaches, according to Dr. Ennin, is critical in engaging all key players long the agricultural value chain, including processes, traders and marketers.

“Usually we are able to move forward when there are projects in agriculture; what happens in the absence of projects?” she quizzed. “We should be able to incorporate this concept of innovation platforms and IR4D into our agricultural and extension system, so that whether there is a project or not, we’ll be able to move our agriculture forward”.

Innovative platforms give room for interest groups to discuss issues around a particular commodity or cropping system, especially with the view to adopting improved technologies.

Under the second phase of WAAPP, the platforms are being promoted to consolidate the gains by disseminating the develop technologies for widespread adoption.

WAAPP is collaborating with the International Centre for development oriented Research in Agriculture (ICRA) to build capacity of innovative platform facilitators in 15 districts in the country on soft skills to deepen the approach at the local level.

ICRA’s Benjamin Horlali Kofi Atidjah says technical skills must be complemented with soft skills to accelerate the adoption of agricultural technologies.

The second phase of WAAPP will be implemented from 2012-2017 with an amount of $60million to scale-up the generation, dissemination and adoption of improved technologies in the participating countries’ priority agricultural commodity areas.

“What we need to do right now is to move the innovation platforms beyond the community level; we should be able to establish innovation platform at the regional level and the national level for certain commodities… to improve on our food security and also on our exports,” said Dr. Stella Ennin.

The two-phase 10-year programme is funded by the World Bank and involves three countries – Ghana, Mali and Senegal.

Researchers promote integrated food production under innovation platform

Farmers and other actors in Ghana’s crops production receive more attention in the agricultural value chain, compared to livestock production.

An Innovation Platform (IP) system implemented under the crop-small ruminant project is however promoting integrated agriculture for food security.

The thee-year project is looking at sustainable intensification of integrated crop-small ruminant production systems in West Africa – Ghana, Benin, Mali and The Gambia.

“When we talk about food security, it is not just filling our bellies but that quality, that is the protein content of the food is necessary for us to attain food security and we are looking at legumes as source of protein and the sheep and goat also source of protein and income,” says Dr. Stella Ennin, Regional Coordinator of the project.

The strategy of the Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) is to develop and disseminated technologies through the innovation platforms.

The innovation platform process involves key players along the value-chain of crops and livestock production – including farmers, researchers, extension, credit providers, processors, traders and the media.

These interest groups deliberate on issues and ways to improve on the productivity of the crops, sheep and goats.

“Goats and sheep are important in food security; their turnover is very high and then also we realize a lot of women are involved in the raising of sheep and goat and therefore if we are looking at poverty reduction, we can easily target women who are down the line,” stated Dr. Ennin.

The project has come up with cowpea and groundnut varieties serving the dual purpose of grain and fodder – these are yielding 50-100 percent of existing varieties.

“We are distributing the seeds, multiplying and would be sharing these seeds among the farmers and other seed growers within the sub-region,” Dr. Ennin said.

Stakeholders have been reviewing the $1.2 million project funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) under the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD).

In the two years of implementation, 960 households and 240 other value chain actors in cereal/legume and sheep/goat production have been surveyed, whilst 16 community innovation platforms have been established with direct membership of 500 farmers.

In Ghana, the Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is targeting farmers in the Atebubu-Amantin Municipality of the Brong Ahafo region.

“The most exciting of the innovations is a change in mindset that is emerging in some of our IPs, that is IP members themselves are making monthly contributions as a group to finance critical aspects of their farm operations,” observed Dr. Abdulai Baba Salifu, Director-General of the CSIR.

The lessons learnt in the past two years are being documented for knowledge sharing in all four participating countries, said Dr. Ennin.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh