This landscape study provides an overview of Ghana’s agriculture and the status of country’s extension system. It also provides information on the prevalence of poverty, nutrition and gender related issues in the country with special focus on rural areas. It summarizes Ghana’s current agricultural and nutrition policy. This report provides a summary of several on-going projects by the USG and other donors in the country related to agriculture extension, and gender and nutrition impacts. 

In Ghana, majority (60%) of the population lives in rural areas and depends either directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihood and survival. Agriculture plays an important role in economic growth, food security, poverty reduction, livelihoods, rural development and the environment (Green et al., 2005). Growth in the agricultural sector stimulates higher rates of growth in the economy through forward linkage activities such as processing and transportation, and backward linkages like the provision of services to the sector, with further growth spurred as a result of spending incomes earned from all these productive activities (MoFA, 2003; UN, 2008; Winter-Nelson and Aggrey-Fynn, 2008). 

Power Point Presentation on Ghanas Agricultural Extension Policy of April 2001.

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is at the heart of efforts by African governments to accelerate growth and eliminate poverty and hunger among African countries. In the West Africa region, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been mandated to support and coordinate the implementation of the program. In this context, ECOWAS developed the regional agricultural policy (ECOWAP).

This document presents the concrete investment programme of Ghana regarding the ECOWAP/CAADP agenda.

A Power Point Presentation explaining Ghanas Block Farming Programme at the Workshop on the Politics of Agricultural Extension Reform in Africa, Institute of Development Studies, UK from 6-7 December 2012.

The Block Farming Programme was introduced into the Ghana agricultural extension services as a special presidential initiative of the late President John Atta Mills. The Block Farming Programme has been hailed by the NDC government as a solution to rural unemployment and the raising of farm yields. Its detractors have argued that it is merely a political ploy.