The Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s Food System Resilience Programme (MoFA-FSRP) will place critical focus on irrigation scheme rehabilitation as a key component of the programme.

FSRP Project Coordinator, Osei Owusu Agyeman, told B&FT that the FSRP will modernise irrigation schemes across the country as part of requirements in rice, maize, soya and tomato.

He said an irrigation policy of the programme is in line with a climate-smart agriculture demands of the FSRP, in which year-round farming is critical.

“We have advertised consultancy for an irrigation policy scheme and implementation on a five-year strategic plan for the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority. This will revolutionise the FSRP’s work. Obviously, we cannot embark on all-year round farming without irrigation,” Mr Agyeman said.

He admitted that land ownership remains a big challenge to agriculture activities, stating: “landownership is not defined and this poses problems for farmers”.

“The programme will identify rightful owners of lands through negotiations, even before we make investments into any of the components.”

The programme, Mr Agyeman disclosed, also includes components for rehabilitation and investment into agriculture laboratories.

The FSRP is a value chain investment, wherein a rice farmer is supported by the programme through landownership, preparation, seed production, processing and marketing among others.

In the case of poultry, a module which has already started, the scheme will feed into the PFJ 2.0 targetted poultry self-sufficiency output of 400,000 metric tonnes per year by 2028.

The West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP) is a World Bank funded programme promoted by ECOWAS for participating countries. It is to strengthen food system risk management, improve sustainability of the agricultural productive base and harmonise agricultural markets in the West African sub-region.

Participating countries include Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sierra Leone, Togo and Chad. In Ghana, FSRP is being implemented by the Ministry of Food & Agriculture, focusing on the intensified production, marketing and consumption of wholesome rice, maize, broiler poultry, soyabeans (for the poultry) and tomatoes.