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Examination of inequalities within the Ghanaian food systems Dialogue participants proposed the following to bridge gaps and improve equitable livelihoods for all actors Food Production:  Targeted policies and interventions (e.g. reduced bank rates, input support, and “women’s crop” support) to attract the youth and women into agriculture and agro-processing.  Sensitize traditional authorities to improve access to land  Women need to be empowered  Actors should be educated on water management and climate change adaptations  Government should create land banks for actors �... Read more� Small dams and boreholes should be constructed for women for dry season farming  Strengthen women farming groups along the food crop production chain. Food Processors:  Business management, branding, packaging and marketing training  Improved access to loans.  There is the need to manufacture simple and gender friendly production and processing devices to reduce drudgery and cost of operations. Food Marketers:  A viable value chain should be developed and supported with the requisite infrastructure and competencies to operate profitably.  Local processing factories should be revamped to create additional market for producers of perishable commodities.  Institutional purchases by Government could create assured markets and control prices  Youth could be encouraged into marketing of agricultural products.  Value addition to foods coupled with market linkages like the school feeding programme.  Local foods should be advertised to promote their consumption. Food Transporters:  Introduce cold vans to preserve fruits and vegetables in transit.  Hire purchase of vehicles should be promoted Food Preparers:  Set and enforce food quality standards to ensure accessibility of wholesome food  Intensify training of preparers, especially on the consequences of malnutrition and unwholesome foods.  Provision of iron-rich for adolescent girls and compulsory healthy snacks at school  Workers in the hospitality industry should not show preferential treatments based on race or gender Read less

Inadequate and weak enforcement of food policies and regulations  Prioritisation of cash crops and commercial trees (e.g cocoa, sea) in certain regions of the country and thus transportation systems is a big challenge in the region.  Cocoyam is a very important indigenous crop but for some years now, the production levels keep reducing due to the use of herbicides on cocoa farms which has reduced production.  Inappropriate use of agrochemicals in farmers bid to increase production  A major activity in the coastal areas, and that is important for food and nutrition security. However... Read more, lack of resources such as modern technologies, skilled personals etc., have impeded the sector from performing efficiently  The local fishermen use a lot of chemicals in the fishing activities and this, coupled with other factors have caused a decline in the fish stock.  Crops such as yam, rice and maize can be stored unlike perishable crops such as vegetables and fruits.  Quality data is needed to address challenges faced by small sale and large-scale farmers. For instance, what they do, what they produce and how much they produce.  Promote agricultural intensification by using high yielding crop varieties on the current small land areas farmers’ farm on, without having to expand land sizes.  The forest areas need to be protected as farmers are encouraged to increase production on the large scale  Training of farmers on organic and sustainable farming practices  Demarcation of proper areas for food vendors which ensure that foods are not displayed directly in the sun. This will help to reduce the carbon footprint an improved waste management, especially where waste is segregated.  District Assemblies should provide proper markets for food vendors that ensure food safety.  Inadequate resources contribute to weak implementation of policies. For example, Extension officers are sometimes constrained the lack of means of transport. There is need to provide the needed resources for such officers. Employing and deploying more extension officers would reduce travel distances.  Increase investments in roads linking forest areas to markets.  Establishment of a legislative instrument backing nutrition that ensures that nutrition is addressed at a high level and prevents any party from doing away with it.  Establishment of institutional arrangements to establish small-scale processing systems close to farms that can take off the produce from the farmers and process them.  Establishment of warehouses in local communities close to production areas.  Develop a clear policy on healthy food production and consumption.  Sensitize all actors along the values chain, including farmers on existing policies, using understandable language.  Increase sensitization through a food safety day/ healthy eating day and provide good media coverage on the need to eat healthily. Read less

Factors that affect healthy and sustainable, food environment In relation to inadequate supply of healthy foods, and food consumption in Ghana, dialogue participants identified several challenges including:  Low capacity of local farmers to produce healthy and sustainable food.  Inappropriate use of agrochemicals, including insecticides and pesticides.  Constraints to accessing finance and loan credit for the production of healthy and sustainable foods.  Inadequate knowledge on healthy eating.  Difficulty of some professionals whose work relate to land to mainstream the land ten... Read moreure agenda in their work.  Foreign rather than local dietary guidelines are used or adapted in Ghana. Some recommendations for addressing these issues include:  Deploy extension officers to communities to educate local farmers on the use of farm chemicals and other farm inputs.  There is the need to inspect production sites as well as the levels of chemicals in foods before sale or exportation.  Mainstream the land tenure agenda into programming of all relevant sectors.  Accelerate the development and use of Ghana’s dietary guidelines. On innovations and interventions necessary to make nutrient-rich and safe food (particularly fruits and vegetables, pulses, whole grain and their products) sustainable and affordable to all, participants suggested that:  Government should control food prices.  Government should invest in vegetable farming by establishing or strengthening irrigation programs especially for vegetable farming to ensure adequate production and affordability.  Individuals should be encouraged to undertake backyard gardening.  The private sector should also be engaged in mobilising resources.  Government should support with the provision of innovative irrigation systems for farmers as this will help year-round production to increase availability and affordability of produce for consumers.  Eliminate too many “middlemen” in the value chain as they contribute to inflation of prices.  Through investments in the production of nutrient-dense foods, support farmers to shift from cash crops to nutrient-dense crops.  Promote culturally appropriate indigenous foods that are a nutrient-rich and safe food for consumption.  Regarding approaches needed to deploy sustainable promotion and communication of nutrient-rich and safe food consumption, the following recommendations were made:  Continue education through school systems, with programmes such as the Nutrition Friendly School Initiative by the Ghana Health Service, UNICEF and Ghana Education Service. These programmes promote the consumption of healthier foods through initiatives such as “fruit days” or “vegetable days”.  There should be collaboration between the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and Ghana Health service to educate farmers on the need to consume healthy and nutritious foods.  Use existing health facility personnel such as nutrition officers to educate people.  Develop a national policy that would regulate the sale of unhealthy foods and advertisement on radio and television.  Media companies, especially the telecommunications agencies should collaborate with the Ministry of Agriculture to use SMS to conscientize phone users on the need to consume nutritious food.  Authorities like the Food and Drugs Authority should have the capacity to ‘bite’ when it comes to enforcement of laws.  Consumption of healthy foods should be championed by high level ambassadors. They should be involved in the advertising of local foods on national television (and other media) consistently to draw the people’s attention to patronizing such foods.  Establishment of Agric information centers where farmers could call in or walk in at a time (where closer) for information.  Education /advertisement on nutrient rich foods on the local TV, radio stations, community durbars, town hall meetings and every available means to counter the advertisement of junk foods on media. Read less

Access to safe and nutritious foods by all Ghanaians Dialogue participants identified factors that militate against access to safe and nutritious foods in Ghana. These factors include;  High cost of production  Contamination of grains and legumes by aflatoxin and the lack of screening methods to ensure safe levels of aflatoxins  Misuse of agronomic chemicals  Poor access to seeds and seedlings in the communities to encourage backyard gardening  Poor regulation of foods produced: there are no standards for regulating produce especially those for the local market.  Irregular sc... Read morereening for food vendors on diseases such as typhoid thus putting consumers at high risk.  Due to hight costs and concerns of food safety, consumers/households omit vegetables and fruits from the family diet, which depletes the nutritional value of our food.  Poor storage system across the food system, production, transportation, retailing and household  Low nutrition literacy  Unsafe water from hospital waste is discharged into rivers, which is utilized by farmers to irrigate their crops.  Low capacity of local farmers to produce healthy and sustainable food.  Reliance on foreign rather than local dietary guidelines by dietitians and other professionals.  To address these challenges, Dialogue participants recommended short/medium/long term actions including:  The need to research into variety of seeds/vegetables, that are insect resistant, planting materials and livestock production.  Monitoring of foods on market: There is the need for random checks of the foods on the market which can be done by the Food and Drugs Authority / Ghana Standards Authority, Ministry of Agriculture, among others.  Dialogue participants offered specific recommendations for the government, development partners, private sector and other food systems actors:  Government should enact policies that reduce food wastage and enhance healthy cultivation.  There is the need for land development (especially in Oti Region) by stakeholder (Donors, government etc.).  The Northern Development Authorities should partner with engineering directorate of MOFA to collaborate and develop simple farm machineries which can help reduce the over-reliance on agro chemicals.  The cost of production should be reduced by providing low cost for tractors to prevent the use hazardous weedicides. This can be done by MOFA and other stakeholders.  The Ministry of Roads and Highways should contribute to minimizing post-harvesting losses by improving the road network in the villages.  Irrigation facilities are also key when it comes to enhancing production. The government should rehabilitate existing dams in the upper East regions. It takes rehabilitation of the canals (including extending the canals to cover more irrigable areas), desilting the reservoirs, e.tc. to put them in good shape.  The district assemblies should be willing to finance some extension activities, which are mostly financed by donor organizations.  Scaling up of good agronomic practices  Contamination traceability issues should be addressed Read less

The discussions from the breakout sessions produced the following key findings:  High input cost, poor farming practices including inappropriate use of agrochemicals (insecticides, weedicides, and pesticides).  Contamination of grains and legumes by aflatoxin and the lack of screening methods to ensure safe levels of aflatoxins  Poor climatic conditions result in poor yield.  During the dry seasons, there is no water for irrigation and then during the rainy season, there is overflooding.  Poor access to seeds, and seedlings in the communities to encourage backyard gardening  ... Read moreWith respect to transportation of food, there are poor road network in villages where food is produced making it difficult to transport food to markets thereby resulting in postharvest losses.  Poor regulation of foods produced: there are no standards for regulating produce especially those for the local market.  With respect to consumption, there is no screening for food vendors on diseases such as typhoid thus putting consumers at high risk.  Poor production, storage, and distribution systems across the food system  Most Ghanaians lack access to processing facilities which helps to add value to raw produce (resulting in postharvest loss and waste).  Lack of education and low nutrition literacy among the population  Unsafe water from hospital waste is discharged into rivers, which is utilized by farmers to irrigate their crops.  Poor food environment for Ghanaians where processed food are high on the diets of Ghanaians and the media publicity for unhealthy foods and beverages (Advertisement).  Unhygienic food environment e.g. unsafe process in abattoirs  Key issues affecting healthy and sustainable food consumption in Ghana include:  Low capacity of local farmers to produce healthy and sustainable food.  Constraints to accessing finance and loan credit for the production of healthy and sustainable foods.  Difficulty of some professionals whose work relate to land to mainstream the land tenure agenda in their work.  Foreign rather than local dietary guidelines are used or adapted in Ghana.  Much attention is given to cocoa which is a major cash crop in the Ashanti region and main source of income to farmers, hence low production of food crops causing food insecurity.  Cocoyam is a very important indigenous crop but for some years now, the production levels keep reducing due to the use of herbicides on cocoa farms which has reduced production.  Local fishermen use a lot of chemicals in the fishing activities and this, coupled with other factors have caused a decline in the fish stock.  Over dependency on rain fed agriculture  Continuous decline in soil fertility amidst climate change.  Poor access to credit by farmers and women to diversify and re-invest in agriculture  Lack of access to gender-sensitive equipment especially to women for small scale processing of food  Production is unattractive to the youth to replace the aging farmers  Lack of stability in terms of pricing.  Sand winning and urbanization with no compensation for the farmers and lack of proper restoration of land properties after winning the sand Lack of support for farming and fishing  Some recommendations for addressing these issues include:  Deploy extension officers to communities to educate local farmers on the use of farm chemicals and other farm inputs.  There is the need to inspect production sites as well as the levels of chemicals in foods before sale or exportation.  Mainstream the land tenure agenda into programming of all relevant sectors.  Accelerate the development and use of Ghana’s dietary guidelines. Read less

• The Ghana sub-national Food Systems Dialogues were convened by the National Development Planning Commission, and the Ministry of Agriculture had an overarching theme - “Developing a Resilient and Equitable Food System for Improved Food and Nutrition Security”. The discussions covered all areas of the food systems and were organized around the Five Action Tracks of the Food Systems Summit Dialogues: • Action Track 1 – “Ensuring access to safe and nutritious food for all” – participants examined whether all Ghanaians currently have access safe and nutritious food. If not, what ... Read moreis it that makes it difficult for Ghanaians to access safe and nutritious food? • Action Track 2 – “Shifting to sustainable consumption patterns” – dialogue participants had conversations about what the key issues affecting healthy and sustainable food consumption were in Ghana. • Action Track 3 – “Boosting nature-positive production at scale” – examined how Ghana’s food production systems can be transformed to ensure sustainable food and nutrition security for the people. • Action Track 4 – “Advancing equitable livelihoods”– explored inequalities within the Ghanaian food systems • Action Track 5 – “Building resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses” – examined Actions to ensure resilience of the Ghanaian Food System. • While a whole of food system approach was adopted, in implementing the sub-national Dialogues a deliberate effort was made to identify key local actors to play key roles before and on the day of the Dialogue. Unlike the national Dialogue, emphases were made on sub-national, zonal particularities (e.g. Unique Food Systems issues, challenges, and solutions for the northern ecological zone, middle belt, and the coastal zones. Read less

Устойчивые продовольственные системы Кыргызской Республики через внедрение инновационных решений, зеленой экономики и адаптацию к климатическим изменениям

• Divergences en termes de gestion des conflits domaniaux. • Divergence en termes de gestion des conflits entre acteurs notamment agriculteurs et éleveurs. • Divergence en politique de partage et octroi de terres aux jeunes et aux femmes. • Divergence en matière de culture et habitude alimentaires.

Les résultats obtenus de ces ateliers ont été d’abord une large concertation sur les thèmes et objectifs assignés et les rapports de chaque région assortie de recommandations. Ce qui nous a permis de faire une évaluation avec exactitude, de l’ensemble du système alimentaire afin de contribuer à l’atteinte des Objectifs du Développement Durables au compte de la république de Guinée.

Les journées nationales de concertations sur les systèmes alimentaires dans les régions se sont déroulées conformément au chronogramme et la Note Conceptuelle définis suivant les orientations du Coordonnateur National appuyées par le Système des Nations Unies en Guinée, aussi et surtout, celles apprises les séances de formations relatives à l'organisation des dialogues sur les plateformes/

Ont pris part à ces journées de concertation dans les régions naturelles, plus de deux cents participants venant des services sectoriels déconcentrés, du secteur privé, des ONG, des universitaires et autres personnes ressources. Les participants ont été mis en groupes de travail spécifiques afin d’examiner les systèmes alimentaires à travers une grille d’analyse composée de quatre (4) thèmes que sont : 1. La chaine d’approvisionnement alimentaire (production, transformation, transport et distribution, commercialisation); 2. Les contextes qui influencent les régimes alimenta... Read moreires des personnes (disponibilité, accessibilité et habitude alimentaire) 3. Les facteurs qui façonnent les systèmes alimentaires locaux (facteurs biophysiques et environnement, facteurs infrastructurels et technologiques) 4. La sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle (économie et impact sur la santé). Sur la base de ces thèmes, les participants ont fait l’état des lieux en mettant l’accent sur les forces, les faiblesses, les opportunités, les menaces et les recommandations sur les thèmes ci-haut. Read less