The University of Cape Coast in Partnership with the European Union has held a two-day conference on a Sustainable Intensification of Food Production (SustIn AFRICA) project for West and North Africa.
The conference hosted members of 5 African countries and 6 European countries, both virtual and present to have discussions on how to achieve a resilient and sustainable food production system through effective technology approaches and methods.
In an interview with ATLFMNEWS, the Vice Dean of the School of Agriculture at the University of Cape Coast, Prof. Kwame Agyei Frimpong noted that the dwindling effects of land acquisition has neccissated the implementation of the project.
“What we want to do in this project is to try to promote sustainable intensification and what we mean is that land per capita is dwindling keeps dwindling therefore we need to come up with effective and efficient technologies and methods by which we can utilize the available land in an economically feasible and environmentally friendly manner ..All the field work will be done in Africa .The five African countries are Egypt ,Tunisia ,Ghana, Niger and Burkina Faso”, he indicated.
He added that “For each country, we have identified different agro-ecological zones .Narrowing down to Ghana, we have Edwira which is the forest savannah transition zone, Tamale, the guinea savannah zone and then Komenda area which is the coastal zone .What we are going to do is that we are going to build a data base of all these stakeholders and they will form the basis for consultation so that whatever technology we want to use will be guided by science, practice and experience”.
He further intimated that the project will serve as a stepping stone to equip the capacity of stakeholders through effective involvement.
“We have deliverables that feed into our expected outcomes .This project is supposed to be for sixty months and we are already in the 5th to 6th month .What we seek to gain at the end of the project, is to find out for each specific agro-ecological zones ,which crop ,which animals can be produced sustainably and by what methods ,and we also would want to build the capacity of our relevant stakeholders so that whatever methodology we would identify and practice would be shared for them to upscale it and replicate it elsewhere”, he disclosed.
On his part, the National Coordinator for the SustIn AFRICA project in Niger, Prof Larwanou Mahamane expects that the project will help intensify agricultural produce and increase the revenue of the average trader.
“We expect that at the end of this project, we would be able to provide technologies for farmers that will help them to increase agricultural produce and also to raise the revenue of traders to improve their well-being and standard of living”
SOURCE: GLORIA AMPOMAH OPPONG/ATLFNEWSROOM
