Ghana might be facing possible food shortage across the country in the near future due to climate change.
This is based on a recent report of a study conducted by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).
The IEA in the report warned that the country risks losing its food basket sited in the three regions of northern Ghana, unless urgent measures were adopted to combat the devasting effect of climate change on food production in the areas.
In the research report, the IEA cited decrease in rainfall, increase in temperature, among others as some climate changes posing risk to food production in the regions.
Commenting on the threat revealed by the research report - a Senior Research Fellow of the IEA, Professor John Asafu-Adjaye, pointed out that: “If [the country’s] farmers continue farming the way they have been farming, then the effect of climate change will affect food supplyâ€.
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He further recommended that if the farmers used more organic and inorganic fertilizer, then the yields will increase instead of decrease even with Climate Change.
“It’s not a dooms day prediction: it will only be a dooms day prediction if we don’t take action nowâ€, he added.
On the other hand, he called on government to take action now by, “building dams, by increasing irrigation, building warehouses or storage silos, by building facilities to process excess produce, then all these climate change predictions will have very little impact because we will be able to deal the increase in temperature and also decline in rainfallâ€.
The report and recommendations by the IEA could well be considered a threat to the government’s optimism – particularly, local food production in the country but could also be received by the policy makers as another evidence to support their argument for adopting and implementing any measure which will promote food security and boost the productivity of Ghana’s agricultural sector (for revenue and job creation).