IMPROVING AFRICAN AGRICULTURE SPENDING ... - Africa Adapt

GHANA’S AGRICULTURE SPENDING:
INCREASING THE FOCUS ON KEY SERVICES AND WOMEN FARMERS
The extension service suffers from the ban on recruitment of public sector employees whereby replacements
can be made but no new recruitment can take place. The numbers in the extension service are dwindling and
the average age is rising and may now be close to 50 in part because the service is generally unattractive to
young people. 62 Officials argue that even though there are not enough extension staff, extension messages
to farmers can be increasingly relayed through radio. There is some truth in this but personal contacts are
vital in imparting key information and demonstrating farming techniques.
Most training of extension staff appears to take place among higher levels closer to Accra while extension
officers in the districts attend training sessions only once every two to ten years, often for a week or less.
Opportunities for learning on the job are therefore limited. Considering that knowledge dissemination is the
major task of the extension service, ‘the failure to provide adequate knowledge to this group indicates an
inefficient use of existing capacity’. 63 Many staff also lack adequate means of mobility, such as motorbikes,
while salaries are low, making it even more difficult to attract talented staff.
The government notes that 47,000 farmers in 940 farmer organizations were trained in business capacity
in 2010. 64 It also says that in 2008 MOFA’s technology support programme retrained all extension officers
to demonstrate best practices and proven technologies in crop and livestock production to about 60,000
farmers. 65 Yet such demonstrations of best practice appear to be very limited in scope and there is currently
insufficient capacity devoted to a number of critical areas for farmers such as using new crop varieties with
fertilizer, finding markets for produce, simple techniques to store and process cassava and how to produce
and process from the new breeds of livestock that are delivered to farmers, for example. ‘Simulation farms’
that demonstrate best practice barely exist. Furthermore, the extension service appears to provide little
support to agro-processing, a critical function where women predominate. 66
Box 5: Farmers’ views of extension services
The farmers consulted in our fieldwork have greater access to extension services than most farmers
in Ghana, partly due to existing connections to MOFA or to services provided by NGOs. However, the
Director of Agriculture for Tamale Municipality says that the ratio of extension officers to farmers is just 1:
2,000 for the municipality. 67 The groups interviewed identify a large range of knowledge and information
gaps that should be addressed by the extension service to help them in their farming. These include
knowledge of:
``New varieties of maize
``Preservation of beans without the use of chemicals
``Credit and tractors services available in the community
``Sustainable agriculture techniques, including composting
``Other farming approaches such as contour bounding, tree planting to act as wind breaks, appropriate
sowing times
Some farmers, such as women farmers in Nangodi village in Upper East Region, noted the need not just
for one-off advice but refresher sessions and ideally continuous visits by extension officers. Unfortunately,
the current state of the extension service means that farmers are losing out on these vital knowledge
inputs.
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