Thanks to our work with national partners, more than 390,000 smallholder farmers like Patrick (including 39.3% women) are accessing and using validated climate-smart advisories and innovations to make informed farming decisions.

AICCRA Ghana bolsters the livelihoods of resource-poor farmers across Ghana and supports greater food security through a partnership-led approach to improve farmers' access to climate information services and the technology and innovation that underpins climate-smart agriculture.  

We do this by incorporating gender and social inclusion-sensitive approaches, resulting in over 39% of our beneficiaries being women.

Highlights

Partners lead the way in accelerating the scaling of innovations to farmers

Led by Ghana Meteorological Agency, we have partnered with community radio stations and community information centres – which reach many women in remote communities – to deliver nowcasts and seasonal forecasts to farmers across AICCRA-Ghana intervention districts communities. 

In collaboration with Crops Research Institute of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CRI-CSIR) and the Department of Agriculture, AICCRA Ghana has established 31 technology parks to promote the adoption and uptake of climate-smart innovations for maize, cowpea, sweet potato, tomato, and yam. 

Through farmer field days organised in these parks, we are reaching hundreds of farmers with climate-smart agriculture innovations. So far, more than 2,400 smallholder farmers have visited technology parks spread across 20 communities in 6 regions to learn about climate-smart crop varieties and One Health practices to improve their yields and income. 

Extension Officers of the Department of Agriculture in intervention districts together with lead farmers in the communities we work with led our efforts to transfer knowledge on CIS & CSA – One Health technologies to more than 45,000 farmers (59.2% women) through face–to–face training. 

Working with Farm Radio International and 8 community radio stations, we produced and broadcasted a 20-episode radio programme to more than 245,000 farmers (39% women) across 8 districts of Ghana. 

Through our digital platform and scaling partner Esoko, we have disseminated seasonal forecasts, pest and disease advisories and early warning announcements to more than 100,000 farmers via text and voice messages.

Strengthening knowledge networks

We are continuining to connect existing local, regional, and international expertise to strengthen the technical, institutional, and human capacities of Ghanaian organisations.

As a result, 219 extension agents from the Department of Agriculture and lead farmers from farmer-based organisations as well as 68 journalists from national and community media have been capacitated by AICCRA partners to support farmers to make climate-smart decisions on farm management such as land preparation, seed selection, soil treatment, planting, and harvesting.

Co-developing decision support tools

AICCRA Ghana is facilitating public and private stakeholder partnerships to develop and deploy decision support tools:  

Together with the Plant Protection Services Directorate (PPRSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, we have mobilized stakeholder support to operationalise a national Early Warning & Rapid Response System for Pests and Diseases (EWRRSPD) for prompt identification, monitoring, and response to potential threats from pest and diseases. The EWRRSPD was developed by 11 public and private sector organisations with AICCRA's support. 

With AICCRA’s support, CSIR - Institute for Scientific and Technological Information (CSIR-INSTI) is working with other stakeholders to develop and host the Ag-Innovation Data Hub, Ghana (AIDH-Ghana), a demand-driven digital data exchange platform for information and data sharing for fact-based decision making among players in the agricultural value chain, including smallholder farmers and policymakers. AICCRA is working with national partners to integrate the hub into other national infrastructure and institutional systems.

Building on the track record of the CGIAR, we are working with the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agricultural Research Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Crops Research Institute (CRI) Ghana, Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), and Plant Protection, and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to scale One Health biopesticides (eg. Neem Leaf Extract), aeroponics generated seed yam to control viral infestation in yam farms, and disease-free sweet potato vines. 

This One Health platform is aligned with the Biorisk Management Facility (BIMAF), a CGIAR multi-stakeholder platform hosted by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Benin, West Africa.

Mainstreaming gender and social inclusion

Together with partners, we prioritized climate information and innovations for crops that are strategic for women, such as cowpea, vegetables, and groundnut. 

Through partnerships with the Women in Agriculture Development (WIAD), Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the district-level WIAD officers at the Department of Agriculture, we are working to build the climate resilience of women through the promotion of climate-smart technologies and climate information services innovations. 

We work closely with Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) and other women’s groups to prioritise innovations that address the needs of women. 

Women farmers made up nearly half the participants in AICCRA activities and led the way to building the climate resilience of other women in their communities. 

AICCRA Ghana is led by International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in collaboration with:

• Crops Research Institute of Council for Industrial and Scientific and Industrial Research
• Ghana Meteorological Agency
• University of Development Studies
• Biotechnology and Nuclear Agricultural Research Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission
• Plant Protection, and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture
• Esoko
• International Partners with sub-agreements directly from IITA: Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) and NIBIO

To learn more about AICCRA Ghana's activities, please contact:

Reginald Kyere, Communications Specialist - R.Kyere@cgiar.org

Further Reading

- Blog: Assessing soil health in Ghana to scale climate-smart agriculture

- Webinar: Gender Series: AICCRA Ghana on Access to Agriculture Services for Women Farmers