Ghana – Recent Developments in Agricultural Research

2010

English

After a period of relative stagnation in the 1990s, agricultural research and development (R&D) spending in Ghana increased dramatically after 2002. In 2008, Ghana spent 352 billion cedis or 95 million PPP dollars on agricultural R&D (both in 2005 constant prices) compared with 151 billion cedis or 41 million dollars in 2002 (Figure 1; Table 1).1 Unless otherwise stated, all investment data in this note are expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP) prices.2 PPPs reflect the purchasing power of currencies more effectively than do standard exchange rates because they compare the prices of a broader range of local—as opposed to internationally traded—goods and services. Agricultural R&D capacity has also increased since 2002, leading to a total of 537 full-time equivalent (FTE) research sta employed in 2008 (Figure 2). However, not all of the 27 agricultural R&D agencies identified in Ghana increased consistently in size; variation existed among the agencies. Some agencies had uneven growth while others saw declines in total number of researchers from 2001-08.

Flaherty, K.; Essegbey, G. O.; Asare, R.