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Agric Minister bemoan increasing trend of deforestation
Tamale April 1, Ghanadot/GNA - Mr. Ernest
Debrah, Minister of Food and Agriculture, has lamented the
increasing effect of deforestation on Ghana's agriculture
and called on all stakeholders to join in the fight against
the menace.
Mr. Debrah said in addition to deforestation, the
disappearance of vegetative ground cover in general, posed a
serious threat to the growth of agriculture in the country.
"Deforestation is proceeding much faster than
reforestation," he said.
The Minister made the call when he opened the 2008
International "Promoting Local Innovation" (PROLINNOVA)
Meeting in Tamale on Monday.
He mentioned human activities such as bush fires,
woodcutting for household use, animals foraging on foliage
and shrubs and mass clearing of trees for agriculture
production as some of the main causes of the problem. "In
less than a generation, we have seen wooded environment
literally disappear", he said.
Mr. Debrah said the renewed global effort to revamp
agriculture under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
the comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADEP)
under NEPAD and the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategies
(GPRS) calls for African countries to rethink the issues of
agriculture development.
He called for active collaboration to enable the nation meet
the goal of halving the number of hungry citizens by
2015."All efforts should therefore be made to protect the
natural resource that can contribute to the achievement of
our development goals", he said.
Mr. Debrah said no amount of external inputs like fertilizer
could change the trend if Ghanaians did not learn to manage
their natural resources more prudently. "We need to
understand that when we take care of the land, the land
would take care of us", he added.
The minister said his outfit, through its extension delivery
system, was engaging communities in serious analysis of the
causes and effects of human activities on the environment
with a view of coming out with community action plans to
protect the environment for improved livelihoods.
PROLINNOVA is a Non-Governmental Organisation initiated
programme aimed at building global learning and advocacy on
promoting local innovation in ecologically- oriented
agriculture and natural resource management.
Ghana is among 15 countries in the PROLINNOVA network and is
hosting the 2008 annual meeting, from March 31 to April 4 to
share views and experiences and to reflect on mechanisms to
strengthen mutual learning on participatory innovation
development processes between member countries.
Dk
GNA/
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