Chamber of Agribusiness lauds nation’s use of technology in agriculture

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Chamber of Agribusiness, Anthony Morrison, says technology is already playing a key role in Ghana’s agricultural sector.

According to Mr Morrison, although the nation’s agricultural economy still faces challenges, the sector is increasingly adopting technology to improve crop irrigation, precision farming, agricultural robotics and data-driven activities that are shaping the future of farming.

Speaking on Business Breakfast on ZED, Mr Morrison lauded Ghana for making positive strides in employing technology to maximise agricultural production.

“The agricultural sector in Ghana, I think, employs about 23 per cent of the Ghanaian population and contributes somewhere between 18 and 21 per cent to our GDP. In addition, technology is playing a key role in this. Technology is deepening research. It is what is bringing up the kind of seeds we should use, irrigation, agricultural robotics, which many people are excited about,” he said.

Mr Morrisson highlighted how blockchain activities are being developed to help farmers deploy drones in combatting pests and diseases, as well as in other key areas.

“We are now developing some form of blockchain activities to help us solve some pertinent issues. For example, deploying drones on our farms for spraying, identifying diseases and the right solutions for them, data analysis, verifying if land can still be viable for farming activities in the next 10 to 20 years. These are all ways of inculcating technology into our farming activities,” he noted.

The nation’s agricultural landscape is diverse, with approximately 57 per cent of the total land classified as agricultural.

The sector is a major driver of the economy and foreign exchange. Farming is characterised by a predominance of smallholder farms, and production varies by agro-ecological zone, with the forest zone focusing on tree crops like cocoa and the northern savanna zone specialising in grains, roots and livestock.

Touching on some of the issues smallholder farmers face, Mr Morrison highlighted their inability to scale up due to the cost of production, market dynamics and other constraints.

“Challenges pertinent to smallholder farmers include their inability to scale up their production as a result of cost, uncertainty of the market, vulnerability to forex and imports. They also have challenges with the skills they need to turn around their productivity, challenges with technology adaptation, and this is according to the 2018–2019 Ghana Agriculture Census,” he bemoaned.