By: Joyce Gyekye
The Head, International Union of Conservation of Nature, IUCN in Burkina Faso, Dr. Jacques Somda has entreated farmers to practice sustainable agriculture to increase food production, enhance biological diversity in order to reap all the ecosystem benefits.
He said the increasing use of more insecticides and pesticides destroy other organisms in the soil, affect soil fertility and the water table. This ultimately leads to health complications.
Dr. Somda said practicing sustainable agriculture has become necessary due to the effects of climate on agriculture, increasing population and bad agricultural practices which threatens food security on the continent.
Dr. Somda was speaking at a stakeholders dialogue on sustainable agricultural practices in Ghana.
He said “the food system is getting into trouble in a way that it’s not able to feed the increasing population and at the same time contributing to nature degradation, hence the need to get all stakeholders together to find out whether we’re in the right way to feed human population.”
Dr Somda therefore entreated farmers to desist from cutting trees on their farms adding that “there are ecosystem services that trees bring. You can also benefit from trading carbon on the international market as contained in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement” .
He acknowledged post harvest losses as a major challenge, especially in food processing and storage adding that “If households are wasting food, we are in the process of negatively impacting on the natural ecosystems because when you waste food you have to request more production and that calls for increasing use of fertilizers, and pesticides and this disturbs the ecosystem.”
A Senior Research Scientist with the Savannah Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Reseach, CSIR, in Bawku in the Upper East region, Dr. Julius Yirzagla said conventional agriculture which is the predominant practice now, where farmers in clearing their fields disturb the land through bush burning, application of chemical hence destroying biodiversity of the soil. This practice he noted is not healthy for food production.
He stated that conservation agriculture which is a viable option is “ the production of enough food and fiber to satisfy the present our needs today without compromising the ability of future generation to do the same.” Dr. Yirzagla said conservation agriculture, climate smart agriculture, organic farming, regenerative agriculture all approaches that lead to sustainable agriculture.
He reiterated the need for farmers to transition from conventional agriculture to conservation agriculture as the former “ is very harmful to the natural resources that we have and farmers should begin to stay away from unapproved practices like bush burning and use of chemicals including pesticides.”
Conservation agriculture, he said involves minimal soil disturbance which is no tillage, planting of trees and other things for permanent cover of the soil and practice crop rotation to enhance soil fertility.
A farmer from the Talensi District in the Upper East, Celestine Adoko who has been practicing conservation agriculture for the past three years said almost every house in the community has started producing compost manure.
She said “we were trained how to do it and during the rainy season we use it on our farms.” Madam Celestine Adoko said with the application of the manure on her maize farm, the corn leafs look more greener and the produce are good as she inter-cropped maize with soya
An official from the Water Resources Commission in charge of the Black Volta Basin in Wa, Joachim Abungba said bad farming practices also affect aquatic life. He noted that water receives everything within the landscape adding that “If we have good agricultural practice, the water receives good practices and if we have bad practices, the water receives that. The bad practices that it would receive, will turn to have some consequences with regards to what is absorbed by the biodiversity systems”.
The information gathered from the dialogue will be put together to assist decision makers to understand the full content of sustainable agriculture in the context where countries are dealing with food insecurity.
The two day meeting brought together over 30 experts in agriculture, conservationists and farmers to discuss challenges associated with sustainable practices in Ghana.
