![]() ![]() The program was designed to enhance food security and create job opportunities. One such program is the Planting for Food and Jobs, an initiative launched in April 2017 by President Nana Akufo-Addo. This is partly due to the dominance of short-term approaches. But most of these programs have not achieved effective results. Ghana has, in recent years, relied on ad hoc programs to drive domestic food security. The conversion of fertile land into cash crop production-and the transformation of Ghana's breadbasket into cashew exporter-presents significant challenges for ensuring long-term food security in Ghana. The research found that farmers in the area previously referred to as the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana have come to dedicate increasing portions of their land to cashew nut production, with only a small portion of land set aside for household food cropping. This article draws from research undertaken as part of a Ph.D., that has sought to understand the drivers and impacts of Ghana's cashew expansion. But it poses potential challenges at the local level, particularly around food security. In Ghana, expansion of cashew production for export markets is championed as part of its plan for agricultural development. On this basis, cashew is predicted to represent 29 percent of the global nut market by 2021. Globally, demand for cashew nuts has grown at around 7 percent each year. Here the nuts are processed and re-exported to the US, Europe, the Middle East, China and Australia. ![]() Of significance, over 98 percent of Ghana's cashew nuts are exported in their raw form to India and Vietnam. This has included sponsored initiatives aimed at increasing production. Organisations such as USAID and the Gates Foundation have also been instrumental in Ghana's cashew sector expansion. In Ghana, a number of social, economic and political circumstances in Ghana have enabled spectacular expansion.įor a start, there has been strong government support as well as backing from international donors. how to plant trees and many other skills.”įollowing these three years of experience, Musah is now the chairman of the Sori Number One Nursery.Cashew nut production has increased four fold across the continent since 2000. They showed us how to make compost, how to fence a garden, how to graft. Starting as a volunteer at a Tree Aid nursery, Musah received climate-smart agriculture training from the Tree Aid team – he says “ showed us how to interplant other crops that will help your cashew to grow well. Image: Project Officer Wilson Azipagrah with participants from our cashew projects in Ghana today, the nursery volunteers are equipped with knowledge and skill in grafting, raising of seedlings, planting of the seedlings, caring for the seedlings, till they are distributed to at the beneficiaries within the municipality.” They are able to sell some of these vegetables to some of the most reputable hotels and restaurants in town. , we train volunteers on how to put the nursery to good use by raising vegetables. We still cultivate vegetables until we enter the Rainy Season again, then we continue to raise more seedlings. “In the dry season, we don’t allow the nurseries to lie bare and unused. Wilson Azipagrah, one of our Ghanaian project officer explains: During the dry season, 15 volunteers attached to each nursery help to farm vegetables on the piece of land, an opportunity to learn and upskill their knowledge. Tree Aid has 3 nurseries in 3 different communities in the West Gonja District. Working with local partners, our team in Ghana help develop training that meets the needs of local farmers like Musah. This project, as with all of Tree Aid’s projects, is about much more than simply planting trees. ![]()
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