Innovation platform: A tool for sustainable rice production in Ghana

2017

English

Agriculture plays a key role in Ghana's economy and that of sub Saharan Africa. Transforming agriculture in Ghana is key to increasing farm output, reducing poverty, ensuring environmental sustainability and reducing food insecurity. Linear transfer of technology addressing productivity, marketing and policy underlies the poor performance of the rice sector hence the need for the Innovation Systems Approach using the Innovation Platform which is a coalition of actors along the value chain as a key tool. Rice is the second most important cereal after maize in Ghana and is fast becoming a cash crop. Rice production and the area cropped are increasing but national annual average yield has remained low, at 2.5 tons/hectare. Despite the enabling prevailing policy environment, local rice production still falls short of local demand hence rice importation is very high, valued at US$500 million annually. To reduce the rice demand deficit in Ghana, four Innovation platforms were established in Atebubu, Amantin (Feed the future), Jasikan and Weta (Systems of Rice intensification). A total of 265 actors were involved in the study. Farmer constraints identified included high cost of agro chemicals and fertilizer, unreliable rainfall patterns/lack of irrigational facilities, low farm gate prices, high incidence of weeds on rice farm and low yielding rice varieties. Key roles of innovation platforms in increasing rice productivity in Ghana are identifying the main bottlenecks in the rice value chain, creating room for some of the challenges to be addressed upfront, creating a united front for advancing and affecting policy, quality rice for the domestic and international markets and linking actors to financial institutions. The requirements to ensure that the full potential of rice resource in Ghana are achieved lie in pulling all efforts at the various stages of the rice value chain together to serve as an attraction pool for strong policies and national aid.

Amengor, N. E.; Asante, M. D.; Acheampong, G. K.; Dogbe, W.