The World Financial institution has mentioned solely three p.c of cultivated land within the nation is irrigated – a phenomenon the Financial institution signifies may stifle Ghana’s agriculture resilience.
In its Africa Can Finish Poverty report underneath the ‘Delivering Irrigation for Enhanced Productiveness and Local weather Resilience in Ghana’ class, the Financial institution disclosed that local weather change poses unprecedented challenges to Ghanaian agriculture.
Local weather change, in keeping with the World Financial institution, reduces the predictability of rainfall, will increase temperatures, and elongates the length of dry intervals.
The World Financial institution famous Ghana possesses substantial irrigation potential, with estimates of irrigable land spanning from 360,000 to 1.9 million hectares; however nearly three p.c of cultivated land is correctly irrigated for agriculture.
Underutiliation of the mentioned potential, in keeping with the Financial institution, dangers farmers going through the brunt of shifting climate patterns and excessive occasions because the nation’s farming system is predominantly rain-fed.
Ghana has 104 central pivot irrigation techniques, every masking a minimal of 40 acres: however about 98 p.c of those techniques and amenities are non-functional.
Over the past decade, the World Financial institution has dedicated greater than US$200million in loans and grants to fulfill Ghana’s local weather sensible agriculture wants.
A bit of those monies have been meant to revitalise deserted irrigation schemes throughout the nation, however some stakeholders imagine these funds have been squandered.
Certainly, an alarming US$11.9million was spent on mobiliation to kick-start building of the US$993million-worth Pwalugu multi-purpose dam, just for the undertaking to fail.
Some tangible outcomes
Nonetheless, some successes have been achieved underneath the Ghana Industrial Agriculture Venture (GCAP) – the undertaking reaching some 14,264 beneficiaries, of which 37 p.c have been ladies.
GCAP invested US$62million in bodily rehabilitation and modernisation of public irrigation and drainage infrastructure in two irrigation schemes positioned on both aspect of the Volta River: the Kpong Irrigation Scheme (KIS) and the Kpong Left Financial institution Irrigation Scheme (KLBIS).
Each schemes present water to irrigate 7,391 hectares cropped by 2,835 smallholders (41 p.c feminine) and several other business farmers.
The principle crop cultivated on these irrigation schemes is rice. GCAP’s interventions have been important to constructing local weather resilience as they enhanced water safety, made infrastructure extra climate-resilient and strengthened farmers’ adaptive capability.
Extra alternatives to prioritise irrigation
Additionally, as a beneficiary of the World Financial institution’s West Africa regional Meals Techniques Resilience Programme’s (FSRP-2) second part authorized in 2022, the nation has a chance to prioritise irrigation to be able to mitigate the ever-escalating impacts of local weather change.
The FSRP-2 helps Chad, Ghana and Sierra Leone in rising their preparedness towards meals insecurity and enhancing the resilience of their meals techniques. Amongst different interventions, FSRP-2 envisions increasing the irrigation rehabilitation and modernisation work carried out underneath GCAP within the nation and consolidating its impacts on productiveness and local weather resilience whereas reaching extra smallholders.