FAO, Others Hold Workshop on Validation Indicators of E-agric, Early Warning Systems

Accra, Ghana, December 13, 2019//-The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Ministry of Food and Agriculture and stakeholders held a workshop on indicators of e-agriculture and early warning systems in the country.

The day’s workshop brought together experts from MoFA, NADMO, development partners, telecom operators, and other relevant stakeholders in the agriculture and early warning systems focus areas.

The Deputy Regional Representative of FAO Africa, Ms Jocelyn Brown Hall, encouraged participants to contribute meaningfully to the validation of the variables.

This she explained would enable activation of the platform for the gathering and synthesis of appropriate real-time datasets to satisfy specific requirements towards agriculture and early warning on Food and Nutrition Security (FNS).

Ms Hall recommended a much larger stakeholder validation workshop is necessary to create awareness of the existence of the platform, receive inputs to better the system for efficient operation and also propose a roadmap for the expansion and sustainability of the platform.

 E-Agriculture and Early Warning Systems

E-agriculture offers strong potential for driving economic growth and increasing incomes among the rural poor through increased efficiency of agricultural production, improved livelihoods and value chain development, according to her.

“It can also play an important role in addressing some of agriculture’s most pressing challenges, which include climate change, loss of biodiversity, drought, desertification, promoting agricultural trade, high individual risk and inefficient supply chains”.

Ms Hall noted that under the innovation window of the delivering together for sustainable development, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), FAO and World Food Programme (WFP) collaborated and technically supported MoFA and NADMO to develop an automated integrated platform named, Agronomic Early Warning System (GH AgroEWS).

GH AgroEWS

As a follow up, the Agronomic Early Warning System was piloted in selected districts in the Volta and Bono regions in Ghana.

This sought to collect critical information and facilitate access to critical data in real time in addressing Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience against Food Insecurity in the country.

The successful implementation of this pilot programme according to Ms Hall is expected in a long run to safeguard the gains made in food production under government’s special initiative on Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ).

As a standard practice for data collection and processing systems, relevant stakeholders were engaged in a preliminary workshop to help in comprehensive deliberation and review of key variables/indicators to meet the standards and requirements of the beneficiary institutions.

Richard Twumasi Ankrah, a senior official of MoFA was emphatic that the GH AgroEWS when implemented would improve the level of information between the ministry and farmers in the country.

African Eye Report

 

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