Title of Project: Agro e-Climate Initiative-Ghana
INTRODUCTION
Nearly seventy percent of the population of most African countries is directly engaged in the
production and distributing of food, hence across the continent food production, distribution and
consumption are perhaps the most important economic activity, in Africa there is the urge and need
to improving food distribution and marketing systems which could have both economic, health and
security implications regionally.
Erratic climatic conditions have been a key factor in the failings in annual crop yields which is the
direct result of the high prices of good globally which posses a great risk to the direct existence of
residents in developing countries, when the Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself
on fire on 17 December 2010, it was believed to be in protest at heavy-handed treatment and
harassment by political authorities in the province where he lived, however credible new studies
suggest that a major factor in the subsequent uprisings, which became known as the Arab spring,
was food insecurity.
Recent studies by IFPRI suggest crop yields across sub-Saharan Africa may decline 5-22% by
2050, pushing large numbers of people deeper into in hunger and poverty as both of Africa's staple
crops, maize and sorghum, are expected to be badly hit by increasing severe weather.
Climate Change and its adverse impacts is been felt across many regions of Ghana and also in the
majority of ACP states, this project has been under implementation since 2012 (Two years)
particularly as a solution to the visible effects and impacts of erratic climatic patterns affecting crop
and animal production in catchment communities in Ghana whiles encouraging environmentally
friendly practices by farmers, also this project seeks to promote innovative ICT Climate driven
practices and policies which has successfully increased agricultural productivity and profits in
catchment communities and have proved to be very resilient to climate change on agriculture for the
targeted farming communities thereby improving food security in the project’s catchment towns in
Ghana.
Whiles smart solutions involving the use of mobile phones and GPS systems will greatly improve
and enhance agricultural productivity for smallholder farmers it is also worth noting that not too
many small-scale farmers will be able to afford such hi-tech equipment hence there is the need to
employ innovative approaches and practices which is highly user-friendly and additionally building
the capacities and training farmers on the need and importance of their basic hand held mobile
phones for such purpose.
DESCRIPTION
A. Setting up virtual online farmer association meetings – To enable farmers from different
farming towns and communities to communicate and shear challenges and the problems
they have been facing in their villages, access to financing, new agricultural practices and
new innovative systems and practices including market information and latest prices for
agriculture produce and farm crops. Remote collaboration and applications of ICT’s for
virtual interactions will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by travel. 0.5
billion tonnes CO2e can be saved without any major investments
B. Agriculture e-commerce – we have successfully assisted farmers to sell their farm produce
through selected Messaging Applications on mobile devices of farmers and that of our project field
teams assisted farmers to be in touch with buyers of their farm produce without the need for the
farmers to travel long distances to sell their foods at nearby marketing centers , by this online
transaction fuel usage and emission by vehicles have been save and time and money have been
saved for the farmers using this service depending on uptake, these solutions can avoid more than a
billion tonnes of CO2e.
C. Farmer ICT Literacy Trainings – this is a new program at the pilot stage, we are of the
conviction that the farmers own understanding of what climate change is about and the vital role of
that ICT’s are playing in promoting sustainable food security programmes and sustainable
agriculture friendly technology driven programmes is vital to sustainable the program and hence
such a programme is ongoing by our organization.
D. e-Farmer Crop Extension Activity (efA-Ex) – Due to the frequent and sometimes unfriendly
weather at farming communities in Ghana including lack of regular rainfall and the regular high dry
weather in majority of farming communities across Ghana and other ACP nations, this project
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which works with farmers whose crops are diseased but do not have access to extension officers due
to the remoteness of their location and the nearest extension office and in most cases the lack of
early means of transport for proper and timely assistance in getting the required insecticides and
pesticides to control weeds and pests this facility is a Crop Diseased Imagery Program (CDIP) on
the farm assessment program, this
DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
The continues shearing of knowledge and information on the types of crops being planted and the
level of growth of crops been planted including any climatic impacts on those farms are a part of the
daily interactions and communications among farmers and farmers association including sustainable
approaches in dealing with pesticides, insecticides and the correct methods of applying fertilizers to
their crops to boost harvest, promote this interactions among farmers but with less travel and less
cost and saving much time prompted the development of this initiative.
Comparing the prices of harvested crops after production and locating suitable food and marketing
centers to sell food crops at economical and profitable prices to the benefits of the farmer is always
a priority, in most situation farmers travel long distances to food marketing centers to sell their
crops only to return back without selling their crops due to poor prices and there is always the need
to having prior agricultural crop information on the market prices and mark locations, and this is a
key motivation for the development of this project.
Crop yields in many agricultural communities in Ghana are sharply reducing due to noticeable
climatic impacts, many farmers have been told it is the result of a weather and environmental
condition and farmers are told of the importance of Information Communications Systems to reduce
the impacts on their activities, our project is highly motivated to bridge the ICT gap and mobile
phone usage among farmers in Ghana and other ACP states and this is a strong motivation for the
development of this project.
The high level of illiteracy rate and the lack of basic primary education among majority of farmers
in Sub Sahara Africa has always been a bigger threat to food security and the situation is much
greater in some remote farming communities in Ghana, our main motivation behind the
development of this project is to enable farmers to get first aid agricultural advice, training and
support on all aspect of crop production including land preparations, types of crops for particular
times of the
Five farmers from the Brong Ahafo region have been among the motivation and supportive in the
early development of the project, also the Olarzu Network Communications groups have provided
key personnel and systems training and support to the projects development and such support is still
ongoing and key staff of our organization volunteered their time and expertise as field teams.
EFFECTIVENESS
Currently there are confirmed 470 direct and indirect beneficiaries of our projects in Ghana which
are all highly agriculture in its population and demographic factor and our education and advocacy
to enable more farmers and other important prospective beneficiaries to take advantage of our
programs. Among the programs that have proved very popular, effective and accepting by farmers
in our catchment communities has been the e-commerce agriculture project and the ICT farmer
training initiatives whiles virtual farmer association meetings and while our e-farmer extension
program is in the pilot face with membership interest in the latter programs increasing at an
appreciable level and we anticipate subscribed members should increase significantly by the next
twelve months.
Particularly many farmers who have taken advantage of our project have shown greater interest and
motivation to learning more on the abilities of their handheld mobile phones and the positive
impacts that their own mobile phones could have on their crop yields and its ability to enable them
to deal effectively with the now erratic climate conditions which has been impacting negatively on
their agriculture activities. Other farmers have shown great interest in the Virtual Farmer
Association meeting platform due to what they say it has drastically helped them to reduce the
transportation costs, times and risks in travelling from their villages to meetings and there have been
interests from other farmers who have requested the replication of project in the communities for
their benefits.
A key issue we have identified as a real threat and could be constraint to this project’s uptake has
been the mass illiteracy of many farmers in our catchment communities in the ability to use their
mobile phones for other activities apart from normal phone calls and our project have expanded our
training and capacity building programme for farmers in all our catchment communities and towns
in Ghana. Regardless of the prevailing environmental conditions this project has proven to thrive
very successfully as it is rare for any biophysical conditions to affective the program as we are
using multiple mobile service providers hence we are able to switch between networks when there
is any technical difficulty however such occurrences are rare.
The society and people in beneficiary communities have been very corporative and the project is
presently been implemented freely without any recourse to financial commitments from beneficiary
farmers and hence there are no socio-economic factors impeding against the projects
implementation.
Building the capacity and training more farmers and other key stakeholders in the agriculture
industry in catchment communities in the basic use of the extended feature of their mobile phones is
vital to the high uptake and increasing the success rate of all the other ICT related program affective
other programs which has the potential in impacting productivity and limiting the impacts of the
negative climate conditions on agriculture activity in beneficiary towns and communities.
IMPACT
In the midths of erratic climatic weather conditions where farmers have been unable to rely on
traditional weather patterns for the effective transportation of food and farm produce, our effective
virtual communications for both meetings and also by farmers in their farms to farmers at home
about the prevailing weather conditions which can affect the transportation of food as most roads in
farming communities are muddy and un-tarred in the majority of farming communities in Sub
Sahara African including our catchment communities in Ghana.
The majority of smallholder and family farmers who are benefiting from our Information
Communications Technology (ICT) on climate change in agriculture has been women and our
current estimates stands at over 70% beneficiaries of our project has been women and children
including young adults.
As more women have been trained in the use of Information Communications Technologies (ICT)
in agriculture by our program, more of women are able to utilize the expanded features on their
mobile phones for both virtual communications, imagery extensions services and the women have
particularly proved to be an important marketing and advocacy medium for the project and their
impacts have been very useful.
The positive impact that this project has had on the farming activity on many women smallholder
and family farmers including high crop yields, improvement of mobile phone illiteracy levels and
the crop extension program have proved to be an essential and an immediate marketing benefit to us
as through their testimonies more women are joining to subscribe to our activities and program.
METHOD OF DUCUMENTING THE PRACTICE
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In-house training of project field Teams - All project staff will be provide with inhouse training and the additional expertise and information needed to be able to
undertake and implementing the project to the latter to enhance
 the quality and
importance of the project on its target region / country or areas.
Training of Project Field Volunteers - The volunteer staff that will be providing
addition field data gathering and other responsibilities to full time project teams will
also undergo training and capacity building to enable them to provide
 a service to the
expected standard per the projects set guidelines and expectations.
Awareness Creation and Project Sensitization in Catchment Communities Awareness and information session about the project will be undertaken on local fm
radio station stations and also on Community Information Centers in catchment
communities and towns
to get the full corporation of farmers and other stakeholders
in such communities.
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Further Mapping of Catchment Project Areas and Towns / Farms - All areas and
towns where information and data will be gathered from for the use of this project
will that is farms, agricultural environments and other selected project locations will
be mapped and connected to enhance data collection and the
quality of work and
make it much easier for the field teams including project staff.
Commencement of Project Data Gathering - Data gathering activities by both full
time project staff and the volunteer staffwill commence with the supersizing and
active participation of the project leader.
Monitoring and Evaluation - A thorough project monitoring and evaluation will be
done for any recommendations
to be implemented by the project team before
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collating and submission.
Implementation of Evaluations after Monitoring - Any evaluation 
and monitoring
recommendations will be implemented by the project implementation team.
Collating and final documentation of The Practice - This will form the final collating
and documenting of all project data
 and information for the final sate of the
documentation prior to submission.
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Review of the Documentation - All projects gathered data and documentation will be
reviewed and checked
for correctness and conformity with set standards and any
typographical errors.
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Submission to CTA .
POTENTIAL FOR SCALING UP OF THE PROVEN PRACTICE
1. Partnership with strategic government agencies including the local Ministry of Agriculture
agency in the project catchment communities and towns will be established and sustained.
2. Replication of the project in other interested farming communities in Ghana and other ACP
states.
3. Participation in regional and international Climate Change in Agriculture programs will be
encouraged and supported.
4. Deepening of advocacy awareness creation activities for beneficiary on the importance and
impact of Information Communications Technology in climatic adaptation for agriculture.
5. Farmer ICT literacy capacity building and training programmes through our participation in
farmer association meetings across catchment communities in Ghana and other ACP states
will be supported and encouraged.
6. Shearing of best practices with prospective partner organization in African Caribbean and
Pacific states.
7. We have a confirmed offer to use online data infrastructural tools and agricultural online
platforms including related technologies from and EU based organization in Brussels,
Belgium to assisting in the international and regional publicity of this project.