Aquaculture experts have cautioned the public against the consumption of tilapia coming from sources they cannot

 ascertain.

The warning comes amid rife speculations that some tilapia are being bred in sewage water, treated with chemicals of toxic effects to humans and pushed from foreign shores onto the Ghanaian markets.

“It is better to go buying what you know than what you don’t know,” said Peter Kwame Akpaglo, an aquaculture specialist with the Association of Church-based Development Projects (ACDEP).

“It is known that some of the fish we eat here are produced using waste water. If you know that somebody is using water from the sewage system, you wouldn’t patronise it. That is a fact. There have been a lot of media coverage concerning the foreign tilapia, some saying they’ve discovered certain chemicals in them— especially what they use in preserving dead bodies.”

He delivered the caution at a fish fair organised at Soe-Yidongo, a community in the Bongo District of the Upper East region, by ACDEP in partnership with the Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC).

The Tilapia Fish Fair

ACDEP and CFTC, with a 19-million-Canadian-dollar funding support from the Global Affairs Canada, introduced in 2012 a project dubbed Resilient and Sustainable Livelihoods Transformation (RESULT) to boost up food security and livelihoods in the Upper East and the Upper West regions.

Since its takeoff five years ago, the project, according to ACDEP, has bettered the lives of over 21,000 farmers and rural community members in the two deprived regions. They have received support in crop production, goat and sheep rearing, fish farming, beekeeping as well as marketing and income generation activities.

At Soe-Yidongo, where a caged tilapia production enterprise was set up at a dam site in 2015 under the RESULT project, about 50 community members have been trained on how to locally produce tilapia and preserve them using smoking, salting and fermenting methods for commercial purposes. And to celebrate the result of the RESULT project, a fish fair was organised near the dam on Tuesday, 10^th October 2017. Stakeholders, including government officials, were in attendance.

http://starrfmonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Some-of-the-locally-produced-tilapia-were-sold-at-the-fish-fair-grounds-1024x768.jpg" width="334" height="250" />Live tilapia were harvested from the dam, grilled for impressed-looking guests and sold out raw to a happy crowd as music played in the background to liven up the fair grounds.

“With our locally produced tilapia, you know the source, as you are witnessing today. We produce them using no chemical apart from the feed that we give to them. Truly, there are some people who produce the fish using growth hormone such that they can get the fish at a very short time. But we are not doing that. We’re using the feed that is available for them,” a proud Mr. Akpaglo stated.

Malnutrition Rate Drops after ACDEP, CFTC Intervention

Checks by Starr News revealed that a high malnutrition rate which had plagued Soe-Yidongo, Soe-Tamolga and Soe-Asolgo (three communities within the Bongo-Soe Sub-District) for decades has dropped significantly since the RESULT project was introduced within that location.

Per the statistics Starr News obtained from the Head of the Bongo-Soe Sub-District Health Management Team, Isaac Adabre, there was one severe malnutrition case, 50 moderate malnutrition cases and 885 normal malnutrition cases recorded in the community in 2016. But in the about-to-end 2017, only 4 moderate malnutrition cases and 677 normal malnutrition cases have been documented. There has not been any severe malnutrition instance so far.

The introduction of aquaculture production in the community, ACDEP believes, would not only help to address the spate of malnutrition in the area but also would give a boost to household incomes.

“For six months now, the community members, guided by aquaculture specialists, have been taking care of the cages, managing, and feeding the fish. The first instance of harvesting the fish, we just sold the fish. This time around, we want to add value to the produce. So, we’ve come along with women who are into fish processing and marketing to teach the women and the group members in general how to process fish into various forms so that back in their households they can use the fish to continue to improve nutrition,” the Deputy Project Director for RESULT Project, Gordon Ekekpi, told newsmen at the fair.

He added: “The bulk of the fish is often sold fresh. But in case the sales are not going very fast, we are also teaching them how to smoke it. This is value addition we are providing for the aquaculture production. We believe it will contribute to their household incomes and household nutrition. We have 50 members to the group and some areas we realised over Gh¢50,000 within 6 months and that is quite a big income to the group members. So, we believe that this year being successful, they are likely to exceed even Gh¢50,000. They can use some of the money to provide for their household needs and reinvest parts into the programme because the project is folding up next year, 2018.”

Thank you for saving our youth— Community members tell ACDEP, CFTC

One of the beneficiaries in an interview with journalists said, “We can see it for ourselves that there is poverty in the area. Our old [women] and old men are struggling to get food to feed. Many children go to school; they cannot get their fees to pay. Some go to school without uniform. This project will help us overcome some of them

(the problems).“Many of us are farmers and the farming is only one season. [In the] dry season, there is no work for us. The young boys and girls who can travel do travel to [the] south to work.                                                                                                                                                                                             

Some come back safely. Some do not come back. Some bring a lot of teenage pregnancies back to the village. The project has changed many of us and the travelling (migration) rate has reduced,” said the Assemblyman for Soe-Tamolga, Philemon Ataba, in an interview with journalists.

Addressing the fish-fair gathering, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Bongo, Peter Ayimbisa entreated ACDEP and CFTC to extend the intervention to more communities with dams in the district.“I have one request to make. You operate in only two dams in the district. I want to plead with you to see how best you’ll extend this same [interventioto other dams within the district. If you go to Dua, they have equally a very large dam. You can extend this programme to Dua and other communities so we can together eliminate or reduce poverty in our district,” the DCE appealed

Credit: Edward Adeti, Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/

Though Ghana has made significant development progress in the last decade and is often hailed as a success story in African development, progress has not been equally shared between the north and south of Ghana. Northern Ghana[1] is affected by its remoteness from Ghana’s economic core, fragile soil fertility, one rather than two growing seasons, volatile climatic conditions, and a history of marginalization from the national agenda.  As a consequence, the three northern regions of Ghana have higher incidences of poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition.

Although the Government of Ghana (GoG) recognizes the importance of improving the productivity of smallholders in order to transform the agricultural sector, an emphasis on commercial agriculture and market-oriented growth risks excluding poorer, more food insecure smallholders in northern Ghana. These farmers often face entry barriers stemming from their low quality and quantity of agricultural production, limited access to improved inputs and extension support, lack of access to credit, few productive assets, weak links to markets, and aversion to risk.

There is therefore a need for interventions that directly support poorer men and women smallholder farmers in Northern Ghana to reduce their vulnerability and food insecurity.

Funded by  Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC), the Resilient and Sustainable Livelihoods Transformation (RESULT) Project in Northern Ghana is a 6 year (2012-2018), $19 million project that is being implemented by CFTC in partnership with the Association of Church-Based Development Projects (ACDEP).

The Project addresses the four basic elements of food security by increasing food availability, access, utilization and stability (i.e. resilience). It is based on proven approaches developed by CFTC and ACDEP, integrating food security and sustainable livelihoods interventions that increase adaptation to climate change and reduce vulnerability to disasters.

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_{More than 5,600 poor smallholder farmers in Upper West Region benefit from food security and livelihoods interventions}

Wa, September 3, 2015 – Canadian Feed The Children (CFTC) and the Association of Church-based Development NGOs (ACDEP) announced that they are working with over 5,600 poor smallholder farmers in 58 communities in the Lawra and Jirapa Districts of the Upper West Region under the Resilient and Sustainable Livelihoods Transformation (RESULT) project.

RESULT aims to increase and diversify the farmers’ agricultural production, build on existing sources of income, and establish new income opportunities including aquaculture. Over seventy per cent of the farmers are women, including a substantial number of widows.

The announcement was made at a Regional Project Consultative Committee meeting held in Wa, chaired by the Regional Director of Food and Agriculture, and attended by district and regional officials. At the meeting, the key project stakeholders received an update on RESULT’s progress and plans.

According to Ms. Gail Motsi, CFTC’s RESULT Project Director, “In the past year, RESULT has successfully improved the skills and knowledge of vulnerable farmers and increased their access to inputs, improved technology, financial services, and markets; integrating gender equality and environmental management throughout. We could not have achieved this success without the strong support of the Lawra and Jirapa District Assemblies.”

Mr. Malex Alebikiya, ACDEP Executive Director, also notes that, “The project activities are integrated into the Medium Term and Annual work plans and budgets of the District Assemblies as part of the mainstreaming, District Assembly ownership and sustainability process.”

Some highlights of the achievements to date are:

1. vAn increase in the use of certified seeds and improved and sustainable agronomic practices by both male and female farmers;
2. vAn increase in the construction of improved livestock housing and the vaccination of animals, including through Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) vaccination campaigns in each community;
3. vAn increase in access to crop and animal extension services by both male and female farmers;
4. vAn increase in maize and groundnut yields;
5. vA reduction in the mortality of goats and sheep;
6. vAn increase in the number of farmers, especially women farmers, engaged in dry season gardening;
7. vAn increase in access to regular weather forecasts, agricultural produce pricing information and buyers;
8. vAn increase in the numeracy and literacy skills of over 1,000 farmers with no formal education, predominantly women;
9. vAn increase in access to savings and loans through the creation of 57 Village Savings and Loans Associations;
10. vAn increase in engagement in alternative income-generating activities such as soapmaking, shea butter processing, groundnut processing and beekeeping;
11. vThe delivery of community-based gender equality, nutrition education and environmental management campaigns, reaching thousands of community members; and
12. vAn increase in the capacity of rural communities and District Assemblies to engage in improving the standard of living of rural communities in the Upper West Region.

“We are very pleased with the progress that the RESULT Project has achieved in our region with our most vulnerable farmers – not only in the crops and livestock sectors but also in terms of alternative livelihood activities. We hope to see further progress in the future and are committed as regional and district stakeholders to ensure that it happens,” says Mr. Joseph Faalong, Regional Director, Food and Agriculture.

RESULT is funded by the Canadian Government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade & Development, and by CFTC for a total of CDN$19 million over six years (2012-2018).

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