Ghana

About Ghana
More than half of Ghana’s population is engaged in agriculture, with women representing around 39% of the labour force on the predominantly smallholder, traditional and rain-fed farms[1].

Due to climate change, farmers are experiencing the negative impact of declining rainfall and soil conditions, rising temperatures and increasing weather extremes. Fertile lands are shrinking as a result[2].

Test sites
The BIO4Africa test sites are located at Nasia and Yagaba-Kubori in the north-east savannah region of Ghana. The area is characterised by intense transhumant pastoralism activities due to its diverse grasslands and annual rainy season.


BIO4Africa will test small-scale bio-based technologies with potential to improve the livelihood and food security of transhumant pastoralist communities and help curtail the nomad/farmer conflict over grazing lands and pasture.

Local farmer involvement
45 farmer groups, including small, medium and large-scale farmers, in and around Nasia and Yagaba-Kubori are providing local forage species for the test site.

 

[1] Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN 
[2] UNDP National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 

Bio-based technologies and feedstock

Bio-based technologies
The test sites will validate the following technologies:

    Green biorefinery, producing:

  • Press cake for livestock feed, e.g. cattle and other ruminants
  • Protein concentrate for use in pilot production of feed pellets for aquaculture
  • Liquid whey for piglet feed

    Pyrolysis, producing:

  • Biochar for soil amendment

    Pelletisation, producing:

  • High quality cassava peel (HQCP) pellets for pig, ruminant and aquaculture feed

Local feedstock for all technologies will include:

  • Gamba grass (Andropogon Gayanus), elephant grass (Pennisetium Purpureum) and the wild-growing lucaena tree (Lucaena Leucocephala)
  • Crop residues from local legumes, vegetables, cereals and tuber crops

Technology trials in the savannah

Ghana's dry climate has just one rainy season a year. So there's limited time to grow the green leaf biomass for the biorefinery. To accommodate this, the team at SavaNet Ghana have cultivated 10 acres of cowpea and Cajanus for the biorefinery trials.

"We are conducting cattle, dairy and pig feeding trials with biorefinery products. The protein concentrate is also an ingredient in the fish feed pellets we are producing on the extruder pelletisation line."
Moses Nganwani Tia, country director, SavaNet Ghana

The Brazilian kiln installed at the pilot site is producing biochar for soil amendment trials with local vegetable crops that are important to food security and incomes.

Watch the video
Moses Nganwani Tia presents the pilot technologies installed at the SavaNet Agriculture and Climate Change Research Centre.