What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

G8 and FAO’s open-agriculture projects set to join forces, SciDev.Net

Agriculture: Engage farmers in research, Nature

Can you be resilient on one acre or less?, IFPRI 2020 Policy Consultation and Conference

Center for Food Safety Report Warns TTIP Could Undermine Critical Food Safety and Environmental Regulations, Center for Food Safety

A bigger rice bowl, The Economist

Miracle grow: Indian rice farmer uses controversial method for record crop, The Guardian

AGRA-backed companies become largest seed producers in sub-Saharan Africa, Thomson Reuters Foundation

The Birth of the Great GMO Debate, Scientific American

Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change, The Wall Street Journal

Ghana’s Sustained Agricultural Revolution

Ghana is the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa likely to meet both the Millennium Development Goals of halving the proportion of people in poverty, and the proportion of people who are hungry, by 2015.

In a study of Ghana’s story IFPRI experts have called the country ‘a prime candidate to champion economic transformation in Africa.’ They state that Ghana should grab the ‘unique opportunity for the front-running African countries to set examples on how to achieve economic transformation and prosperity on the continent’.

But there is a side to this narrative that deserves even more attention: Ghana’s quiet and steady agricultural revolution.

According to the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Ghana’s agricultural sector has grown by an average of about 5% per year during the past 25 years, making it one of the world’s top performers in agricultural growth. Further successes include:

• Between 1990 and 2004, Ghana cut hunger levels by 75%.
• Undernourishment went down to 8% by 2003, from 34% in 1991.
• Child malnutrition declined, with the proportion of infants underweight falling from 30% in 1988 to 17% in 2008.
  • Political and economic reforms reduced the percentage of the population living in poverty from 52% in 1991-92 to 28.5% in 2005-06.
  • Rural poverty fell from 64% to 40% between 1981 and 2007.
  • By 2005/07, staple food production per person was more than 80% higher than it was in 1981/83.