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Climate Services
journal homepage:www.elsevier.com/locate/cliser
Original research article
The role of climate services in agricultural productivity in Ghana: The
perspectives of farmers and institutions
Francis Z. Naab
a,⁎, Zaid Abubakari
b, Abubakari Ahmed
caSchool of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK
bFaculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands cDepartment of Planning, Faculty of Planning and Land Management, University for Development Studies, P. O. Box UPW3, Wa, Ghana
A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords: Agricultural policy Climate change Climate services Ghana A B S T R A C T
Climate change has been a great drawback for developing countries regarding agricultural productivity. In discussing the possible spheres of adapting agriculture to climate change, climate service mainstreaming is given less attention despite its role in agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where smallholder farming is dominant and rain-fed. Attempts at mainstreaming climate services through sectorial development strategies in order to improve adaptive capacities of stakeholder institutions are often given less attention. This paper argues that mainstreaming climate services should be at the forefront in ensuring a resilient agricultural base in SSA and that the co- production of these services is ideal for all users. Drawing on empirical evidence from Ghana, the paper concludes that though the mainstreaming of climate services provides possible reliable options for developing a resilient agricultural sector, there are institutional challenges that require immediate redress especially the adoption of a National Framework for Climate Services.
Practical implications
Smallholder farmers are most affected by climate variability, and they may even suffer more if appropriate mitigation measures are not put in place (Mendelsohn et al., 2006). With policies that mainstream climate services into sectorial policy formulation and implementation, farmers can make agri-cultural decisions based on informed knowledge. Climate services is an indispensable part of policy making in con-temporary times. It plays a vital role in adaptation planning and resilience of communities to adverse impacts of climate change. The joint knowledge production and dissemination of climate information presents a good opportunity for all users of the information to adapt to the changing climate (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). Yet still, climate services are still far from being included in policy making in developing countries like Ghana. For instance, in Tanzania and Ghana, though most policy documents have mentioned climate change as a sig-nificant threat to livelihoods, there is no clear policy on the provision of climate information to all users as a possible means towards adaptation (Sarpong and Anyidoho, 2012).
Though weather forecasts are made on daily bases by the Ghana Meteorological Agency through the state and private media, the information is usually not tailored to the agri-cultural sector, especially smallholder farmers, and it is com-municated in English language which is not easily understood by farmers.
Most smallholder farmers in rural Ghana and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa rely on indigenous knowledge and tradi-tional coping strategies as a means of forecasting the weather and climate (based on the appearance of certain kinds of birds, the germination of some plants, changes in cloud cover and wind pattern) (Antwi-Agyei et al., 2012). However, in recent times, increasingly erratic weather conditions are making it difficult to rely on such indigenous knowledge and practises. Climate uncertainty often increases the risk of farmers. It de-ters them from taking certain decisions such as when to plough, what to sow, when to sow, how much land to plough as well as the amount of time and money to invest in farming. The role of climate information in creating certainty and in-fluencing the decisions of farmers is important. Furthermore, the joint production and dissemination of climate information offers an important way of farmers’ adaptation to climate change and ensuring resistance among smallholder farmer
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2019.01.007
Received 6 April 2018; Received in revised form 10 November 2018; Accepted 21 January 2019
⁎Corresponding author.
E-mail address:napata09@gmail.com(F.Z. Naab).
Available online 30 January 2019
2405-8807/ © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
households.
For climate information to be usable, all stakeholders must be involved in its production and dissemination (Lemos and Morehouse, 2005). To this end, the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research’s (CGIAR) programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) plays a vital role in ensuring that smallholder farmers gets the needed information in developing countries. CCAFS leads a process of co-production of climate services that takes into consideration, the experiences and indigenous knowledge of farmers on the one hand and the meteorological departments on the other hand. This information is agro-meteorological information which provides the basis for collaboration be-tween the two divides. This participatory approach has yielded good outcomes as farmers (with the help of extension officers) are able to make suitable choices regarding the type of crop, livestock and livelihood options. To date, more than 1023 extension officers and peer educators have been trained to work with smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi and more recently in Ghana. In other areas in Tan-zania, Kenya and Malawi, mobile phones and local radio sta-tions are used as avenues for disseminating climate informa-tion in local languages to farmers in the hinterlands (CCAFS, 2018).
The proliferation of mobile phone usage in SSA is an op-portunity that can be used to disseminate climate information. It is estimated that for every household in the region, at least one member uses a mobile phone. This medium has been explored in the areas of money transfer and dissemination of health information. There is therefore, a higher potential of success if the same medium is used to disseminate climate information. Through this medium, rainfall patterns, tem-perature data and forecasting services on daily and weekly basis can be communicated to farmers in languages that are easily understood.
Development agencies involved in agricultural sector in-terventions need to collaborate to be able to systematically solve agricultural problems. There are many related inter-ventions that are being implemented parallel to that of climate services. These can be combined with climate information to guide smallholder farmers in decision making. For instance, the FAO and other development agencies such as MiDA and USAID have been implementing famer field schools and talking box approaches in educating farmers on best farming practises in developing countries. Climate information can be included as one of the major modules of these educative programmes. For example, the farmerfield schools approach is particularly a participatory approach which can extend beyond the current catchment areas.
1. Introduction
Growing industrialization, deforestation, and human anthropogenic actions over the past decades have led to climate change, the effects of which are inevitable and widespread (Burghila et al., 2015). Issues of climate are therefore not only of importance at the local and national levels of policy formulation but more importantly call for integration of policy within and between countries in order to minimise policy plur-ality and consequent implementation gaps (Aldy and Robert, 2007). Specifically, at the local level, a wide range of stakeholders are involved namely; policy-makers, service providers, implementing agencies and the general public. The multi-stakeholder chains of interactions and coordination make issues of climate change difficult to tackle with unilateral interventions (Aldy and Robert, 2007). To be able to address
these pertinent issues, the mainstreaming of climate change policies and implementation strategies is of great importance for sustainable adaptation. In the absence of climate change policy mainstreaming, sporadic attempts by individual stakeholders in many developing economies have yielded limited results (Hassanali, 2017).
It is anticipated that the impact of climate change manifests more in agriculture, health, water, among other sectors (Nicklin and Cornwell, 2012). Despite the manifestation of the effects of climate change in different sectors, the agricultural sector is the most affected in the Global South mainly because the sector is rain-fed with minimal tech-nological input (Conway, 2011; Mendelsohn et al., 2006; Abubakari et al., 2016). In a way to adapt to the effects of climate change likely options have long resided in the sustainable implementation of tradi-tional knowledge (Nakashima et al., 2012). However, the increasing fading of traditional knowledge, coupled with the inconsistencies in collection of climate information have prompted the need for compre-hensive implementation of climate services (CS) for the production of information about climate and climate change (Buizer et al. 2016; Conway, 2011; Hansen et al., 2011; Ranger et al., 2011; Gupta et al., 2011). CSs involve the generation, provision, and contextualization of information and knowledge derived from climate research for decision making at all levels of society (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). This plays a vital role in supporting agriculture in terms of detecting early warning signals, derivation of climate change patterns and building of resilient adaptation and mitigation strategies (Conway, 2011). Information from CS enables climate projections for impact mitigation and adaptation in respect of local, regional and national needs (Conway, 2011). For cli-mate service providers to meet these goals, clicli-mate information has to be tailored to the needs and requirements of the end users.
Despite the role of CS in supporting a resilient agricultural base, little is achieved by many developing countries in the global south for a number of reasons. First, in many parts of the global south, there exists a misalignment between the climate information needs and the actual information that is being provided (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). This makes it nearly impossible to make reliable projections for the adoption offit-for-purpose mitigation and adaptation strategies (Hartmann et al., 2002). Secondly, aside the manifest misalignment, there is also a dis-connection between climate information users and climate information providers (Changnon, 2004). On the one hand, this makes it difficult for service providers to identify the real user requirements and on the other hand it makes users unable to make use of the information they are being provided. A third bottleneck relates to the inadequacy of the information that is being provided, the manner of dissemination and the non-contextualization of information (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014). For example, weather forecasts in some parts of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) are not communicated in local languages that many farmers understand. As a result, such farmersfind it difficult to incorporate the available information into decision making and planning processes (Meinke et al., 2006; Orlove et al., 2004).
Amidst of all these challenges, mainstreaming CS in the agricultural policies of many countries in SSA still remains problematic. However, the current literature is fragmented in terms of providing a compre-hensive understanding of the issues from multi-stakeholder perspective. This potentially derails collective efforts in implementing CS in SSA. Whereas there are increasing studies on CS in developing countries, there is little or no information about Ghana despite its role in inter-national agricultural value chain given its role as the second largest producer of cocoa in the world. It is in this regard that this paper in-vestigates the barriers in the mainstreaming of agro-based climate services in agricultural policies and how that affects agricultural pro-ductivity in the context of Ghana. The current research therefore bridges major policy gaps on the interface of CS, agricultural policy and climate change in Ghana by soliciting perspectives from multiple sta-keholders.
The paper is structured in 7 sections.Section 2reviews related lit-erature on climate change and agricultural policies and the gaps in
climate services delivery.Section 3reviews literature on the constraints of developing user-centric climate service.Section 4discusses the re-search methods used.Section 5presents the results which are discussed inSection 6. The paper concludes inSection 7with recommendations for policy intervention.
2. Climate services and agricultural policy in Ghana: A review Agriculture is a major employer and the largest contributor to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Africa and elsewhere, yet it is highly vul-nerable to climate change (Gollin and Rogerson, 2014).Leturque and Wiggins (2011)argue that growth in the agricultural sector has reached an average of more than 5% for the past 25 years, making Ghana among the top performers in the World. However, in recent times, there is growing concern on the dangers encountered by the agricultural sector as a result of climate change. The Government of Ghana has made at-tempts at responding to climate change from 1991 when it adopted the Environment and Climate Change Policy (MESTI, 2013). However, it was not until the year 2000 when Ghana published its first National Communication, in accordance with its mandate as a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. Consequently, climate services have not received much attention in agricultural policy documents.
Agricultural policy documents scarcely mention climate services/ information. In reviewing 17 policy documents related to agricultural policy and/or national policies, climate change is commonly mentioned in 14 of these policy documents. However, climate services or its re-lated terms/reference is hardly mentioned. Through word counting of key climate services terminologies in 17 key national policy documents, the highest count of climate services or related reference (meteor-ological information) is in the National Integrated Water Resources Management Plan where hydro-meteorological information is men-tioned 15 times as shown in Table 1. This is however associated to information regarding rainfall patterns and data. The other terms that were searched in the policy documents included climate information (mentioned in 2 policy documents); weather forecast(ing) (mentioned in 2 policy documents); weather information (mentioned in 1 policy document); hydro/meteorological information (mentioned in 6 policy documents); meteorological services (mentioned in 2 policy documents); weather (mentioned in 10 policy documents); forecast/forecasting (mentioned in 9 policy documents) and climate services (mentioned in only 1 policy document). Climate information, weather forecast(ing)/ information and meteorological services/information are related to climate services.
Clearly, there is no evidence in these documents that suggest that climate services are mainstreamed in these policy documents. Forecast (ing) was generally used in the policy documents with respect to bud-getary forecasts by government and weather used to depict the vagaries of the atmospheric conditions of a place.
Notwithstanding the increasing importance given to climate change in policy documents, there appears to be a missing link on strategies that seek to mainstream climate services/information in various policy documents. This missing link makes it increasingly difficult to channel efforts in ensuring that usable climate information is channelled to the desired users.
3. Constraints in recent efforts to develop user-centric climate services
Global, regional and national efforts at tackling the effects of cli-mate change are not without challenges. Studies point to the in-adequacy of information as a major barrier to climate change adapta-tion, planning and implementation (Archie et al., 2012; Measham et al., 2011).Srinivasan et al. (2011)argues from the point of implementation thatfield progress is rather slow despite the seeming concern by experts and policymakers to connect service providers and users in an end-to-end system of climate information generation and application. Other
studies acknowledged the difficulty faced by illiterate users in under-standing climate information and other related CS (Changnon, 2004). Patt and Gwata (2002)in the study of farming households in Zimbabwe revealed that subsistence farmers often preferred traditional methods of farming based their personal experiences with less or no recourse to available climate information. In the case of Ghana, a considerable percentage of its population (about 45%,) who are engaged in small-holder farming in the rural areas are mostly illiterates (GSS, 2010). Famers therefore make little use of climate information in decision making because the current channels of communicating climate in-formation are not suitable for the illiterate population (Antwi-Agyei et al., 2014).
Aside farmer illiteracy, the adherence to climate information may be influenced by other competing factors. Where farmers consider these competing factors to be more important than the available climate in-formation, there is a high inertial response and vice versa (Skolnikoff, 1999). A clear example exists in the history of drought in the Ethiopian highlands in the year 2000 prior to which donor countries gave early warning signals in 1999 but this information could not help in miti-gating the food crises because the farmers were hopeful that the aid given by donor countries could be used as leverage to stabilise the effect of the drought (Devereux, 2009).
Moreover, the socio-cultural context of the users of climate formation also influences the use of climate information. Local in-stitutions tend to rely on the traditional systems that have been with society for decades (Nakashima et al., 2012).Dinar et al., (2008) ob-served in Ethiopia that, the adoption of climate-related services was quite slow among poor rural peasant farmers partly because of the cultural practices that have evolved over centuries. In a similar study by Ingram et al., (2002), farmers in Burkina Faso were not interested in climate forecasts which they found contrary to their traditional beliefs. Also, in North-Eastern Brazil farmers often prefer to rely on forecasts by “rain prophets” than those released by the state meteorological orga-nisation (Lemos et al., 2002).
Finally, the use of climate information may be obstructed if farmers do not have the needed resources and expertise to use such information appropriately.Tarhule and Lamb (2003) in their analysis of climate information in the Sahel, observed that the use of climate information is not only constrained by the lack of it, but also by the inability of po-tential users to respond to it. The case of Burkina Faso is a clear example where the absence of basic agricultural technologies made it difficult for farmers to respond to seasonal forecasts (Ingram et al., 2002).
Drawing from the above, it is evident that, climate change mitiga-tion and adaptamitiga-tion intervenmitiga-tions face tremendous roadblocks, espe-cially in the developing world. Hence the design of climate service packages and institutions in response to current obstacles should ap-propriately link users of CS to the providers with understandable pat-terns of communication. This involves consulting all stakeholders to co-produce and tailor information for beneficial use.
4. Research methodology
The study uses an exploratory approach to understand climate ser-vices in the context of agriculture in Ghana. The study used qualitative methods in collecting primary data. These included focus group dis-cussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KFIs). The study dealt with farmers on the one hand to get their understanding and conception of climate change, its effects and possible local mitigation and adap-tation strategies as well as their respectives on access and use of climate services. On the other hand, the study dealt with institutions who are most often responsible for policy formulation with regards to the pro-duction and dissemination of climate information in the agricultural sector. The FGDs enabled us to understand the interwoven contextual issues of climate change within farming households in Ghana as parti-cipants were able to express multiple opinions while also listening to the opinions of others. This helped shape the discussions as participants
Table 1 Climate services policy review in Ghana. Policy document Climate change Climate services Climate information Weather forecast Weather information Forecast/ Forecasting Meteorological information Weather Meteorological services 1 Food and Agriculture Sector Development Plan II 10 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 2 Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda I (2010 –2013) 70 0 0 0 0 8 9 3 0 3 Medium TASIP (2011 –2015) 8 0 0 3 1 5 0 6 0 4 National Climate Change Adaption Strategy 107 1 1 0 0 3 0 6 0 5 National Environmental Policy (undated) 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 Ghana Environmental Action Plan Vol.1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 7 National Integrated Water Resources Management Plan (2012) 63 0 0 0 0 6 15 0 0 8 National Water Policy (2007) 4 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 9 Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda II (2014 –2017) 14 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 10 Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II (2006 –2009) 50 0 0 0 4 4 2 1 11 Ghana Poverty Reduction 0 0 0 0 0 7 1 1 0 Strategy I (2003 –2005) 12 Tree Crops Policy (2013) 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 13 Ghana Irrigation Development Policy (2011) 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 Ghana Livestock Development Policy and Strategy (2016) 70 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 Agricultural Extension Policy (2002) 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 16 Bank of Ghana Agriculture Policy (2004) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 National Action Programme to Combat Drought and Deserti fi cation 50 1 1 0 1 0 5 1
contributed on one another’s opinions and also corrected one another. During the FGDs, care was taken to ensure that all participants were given fair chances of participation and this helped us to regulate the attitude of overactive participants from dominating the entire discus-sions. The target participants for the FGD were farmers. The focus groups were selected based on data obtained from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture on the spread of smallholder farmers in the country. For the purposes of this study, a farmer was regarded as a smallholder if his/her total farm size was less than 10 ha. In total, 10 FDGs were conducted, 1 in each regional capital (seeFig. 1) and each composed of eight (8) to ten (10) participants.
In order to ascertain the source and mode of climate information and how it is being tailored towards specific users, especially in the agricultural sector, it was necessary to interview policy making in-stitutions. In-depth interviews were used to obtain information that relates to specific knowledge and experiences of concerned institutions both at the governmental and non-governmental levels. This enabled us to understand the dynamics of formal policy formulation and parallel interventions made by non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) in fa-cilitating climate services to the desired users, especially in the agri-cultural sector. In doing this, some institutions were purposively sam-pled based on their areas of operation. Institutions interviewed included the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMA), Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Cocoa Research Institute (CRI), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Further interviews were conducted with civil society groups and companies including Wienco Co. Ltd., Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Green Peace. In all ten (10) KFIs were conducted; six (6) with public institutions, and four (4) NGO’s (seeTable 2below). Aside the primary data, secondary data which included policy documents, reg-ulations, and publications of both local and international climate cen-tres were reviewed and used to complement the analysis and discus-sions in this paper.
The main interview questions bordered around the following themes;
(1) smallholder farmers’ perception on climate services in Ghana; (2) climate services production and dissemination;
(3) the institutional make-up of climate services; and
(4) the barriers and prospects of mainstreaming climate services in agricultural policy.
As a prelude, further explanations were given to respondents as some did not understand the concept of climate services.
In addition to the qualitative methods of data collection, secondary data was used to cross-reference responses of interviewees. This was obtained from published reports and articles based on national, re-gional and local area analysis of climate change and adaptation in-itiatives. Key agricultural policy documents in Ghana formed a sub-stantive part of the data that were gathered from secondary sources. 5. Results
In this section, we present the empirical findings from the study areas. First, we looked at the diversity of the actors in climate service delivery and the climate services that they provide. Secondly, we looked at the media through which climate information is commu-nicated andfinally, we looked at how local farmers perceive and use climate information.
5.1. Actor diversity in the Ghana climate services industry
The CS industry of Ghana is developing and is dominated by mul-tiple sector players which creates diversity in service provision. The
study found that current national institutions charged with the pro-duction and dissemination of CS are the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMA), the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Climate Change Committee (NCCC), and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Different CS providers provide information in dif-ferent forms depending on their target user groups and interests. Through the interviews, respondents acknowledged the importance of knowledge-based CS delivery. This is highlighted in the response of one official from GMA that “knowledge should precede action” indicating that sustainable CS delivery can only be made based on sound knowledge of both user requirements and related local dynamics. Some industry players bemoaned the poor state of current CS delivery as being un-coordinated and sporadic1.
With respect to the types of services, providers focus on different aspects of CS. For example, while the GMA provides a general daily, monthly and seasonal forecast of the weather to the general public as well as some specific sectors (aviation, defence and marine), there is no particular aspect of their services that is tailored to farmers. This ren-ders farmers (especially smallholren-ders who mainly depend on rainfall) vulnerable as they do not have sector-specific information packages about the length of the rainy season, types of crops to grow, farming practises to adopt, and the amount of resources to commit to farming. While CS providers like CCAFS concentrates on providing rural farmers with climate-smart agricultural options, IDE focuses on dry season farming interventions, the GMA provides aviation-oriented cli-mate information, Wienco provides clicli-mate services in the areas of cash
Fig. 1. Study areas for focus group discussions.
and food crops for both small and large-scale farmers in the agricultural value chain. However, for all the CS providers, the information is based on regional forecasts rather than specific location information. 5.2. Communication of climate information in Ghana
Though the current CS structure is not one that targets services to farmers, it is prudent to make use of available information to influence decisions. It was found that information on the weather forecasts is communicated via state-owned electronic media and published bulle-tins from GMA. Despite the high rate of illiteracy climate information is mostly communicated in the English language which is not understood by many local farmers. Even for those who understand English, access to the electronic media is problematic as many farming communities are without electricity. Although in recent times Wienco provides cli-mate information in both English and“Twi” (one of the widely spoken dialects in Ghana), it is still not enough as there are many local lan-guages and not every farmer speaks nor understands“Twi”.
A more effective way of communicating climate information seems to be the use offield extension staff who work on the ground and have detailed understanding of the local situation as well as the technical expertise. Government through the MoFA over the decades has trained and deployed some extension officers to rural farming communities to advise farmers on various agrological and climatological decisions and to assist them in the entire farming seasons. Other non-governmental organisations like Wienco also has various extension staff that assists farmers in farming practises such as land preparation as well as the application of farm inputs and post-harvest storage practises. The main drawback of this approach is the inadequacy of staff and logistic con-strains in staff deployment. This is exemplified in the statement of MoFA that they are currently under-resourced and cannot provide the needed services and information to farmers.
5.3. Farmers’ perception of climate change and climate information From the interviews, all farmers acknowledged that the climate is indeed changing. They mentioned a number of observed characteristics of climate change which include, loss of soil fertility, longer dry sea-sons, shorter rainy seasons and torrential rains. Focus group discussions
with farmers revealed their continual reliance on their own indigenous knowledge and interpretation of weather conditions to guard them in their farming activities. This indigenous knowledge forms the basis upon which they make decision as to the choice of crop, timing of cropping and harvesting. Some farmers gave individual accounts of their experiences in dealing with climate information. An interviewee in Lawra, a town in Upper West Region stated that;
We had always relied on our own knowledge to interpret weather con-ditions…we use the cries of some particular birds, the tussling of trees and the growth of some particular kinds of grass to determine when the rains are setting in after a long period of dry season….during the rainy season, we study the positioning of the clouds and the heat it comes with to predict rains…..we scarcely listen to radio or televisions for these forecasts, even when we do, they are communicated in languages that we don’t understand….we sometimes also consult the gods for rains or perform some rituals to induce rains….we also exchange ideas with our colleague farmers in other communities.
These perceptions about the weather and the interpretation of weather conditions have been passed on from their ancestors. These views constitute their major source of information about the climate. Also, most farmers have resorted to learning by doing and imitating other farming practises of other farmers either in their communities or other surrounding communities.
5.4. Climate services in agricultural policy
In order to further ascertain the status of CS in agriculture policies and programmes, we made an analysis offive policy documents and programmes in the sector. Thefirst is the Food and Agricultural Sector Development Plan (FASDEP) which was made in 2002 and was revised in 2007. The analysis revealed that both FASDEP I&II never streamlined climate change and hence had no CS. This can be attributed to the fact that climate change was not a major area of attention (MoFA, EPA, MESTI). It was however evident that, though climate change became a major area of concern in agriculture in Ghana, CS has never been the target. This is reflected in the current agricultural policy document (METASIP) as it states that;
Table 2
Focus group discussions and key informant interviews.
Region Area/location No. of Participants Agric. Products Sources of Climate Information
Upper West Lawra 10 (6 M, 4F) Groundnuts Cultural signs + Colleague farmers
Upper East Bongo 9 (5 M, 4F) Groundnuts & Millet Colleague farmers and natural signs
Northern Yendi 8 (4 M, 4F) Yam & Maize Colleague farmers and natural signs
Brong Ahafo Kintampo 9 (4 M, 5F) Yam & Maize Colleague farmers and natural signs
Ashanti Mampong 10 (5 M, 5F) Cassava & Cocoa Colleague farmers and natural signs
Western Sefwi Wiawso 10 (5 M, 5F) Cocoa & Cassava Personal forecast
Eastern Koforidua 8 (5 M, 3F) Cassava & oil palm Colleagues and personal forecast
Central Otuam 9 (4 M, 5F) Cassava, Cocoa Traditional sources
Volta Nkwanta 9 (5 M, 4F) Yam & Maize Colleague farmers and personal forecast
Greater Accra Ada 8 (4 M, 4F) Okro & Cassava TV, Colleague farmers + personal forecast
Institutional interviews/Key informant interviews (KFIs)
Institution No. of Interviews Location Level
Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) 1 Accra National
National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) 1 Accra National
Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) 1 Accra National
Cocoa Research Institute (CRI) 1 Accra National
Environment Protection Agency (EPA) 1 Accra National
Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMA) 1 Accra National
Climate Change Adaptation for Food Security (CCAFS) 1 Accra National
IDE 1 Lawra Local (Lawra)
Green Peace 1 Accra National
Wienco Co. Ltd. 1 Accra National
“.... the Ghana Meteorological Agency will be encouraged to provide more localized weather forecast information ...this information will be communicated to the farmers through the media (electronic and print) and by the Directorate of Agricultural Extension Services to ensure timely land preparation and planting...”
Despite being one of the main policy documents on climate change, not much is done practically to enable the implementing agency, the Ghana Meteorological Service (GMA) to translate the policy to reality. According to officials of the GMA, the agency has been under-resourced making service delivery problematic. Other policies like the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA II) recognise the dynamic nature of climate change and acknowledged that climate change manifests more in increasing levels of desertification in the Northern Savannah and undermines the agricultural potential and the economic viability of the Northern ecological zones and its capacity to contribute to national development. However, policy response with regards to helping the region has been led by CSOs and the Savannah Accelerated Development Agency (SADA). The Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) by MoFA has not done much in promoting CS to help alleviate the hardships of farmers within the project areas. Thus, the region still experiences seasonal flooding, poverty and hunger among many households. Though the NCCPF is intrinsically linked to the GSGDA, action has been slow and conscious efforts are not streamlined with regards to CSs. In an interview with the MESTI, it was made apparent that the National Climate Change Policy Framework (NCCPF), which was developed in 2010 set forth the country’s direction with regards to climate change. The National Climate Change Committee (NCCC) is the outcome of the NCCPF which coordinates all climate-related activities in MESTI. Hitherto, the EPA was responsible for climate related actions in Ghana but was recently moved to the MESTI because of the EPA has no control over policy formulation. According to MoFA, previously, climate change initiatives in Ghana were centred on environment, energy, and forestry, which were always donor priorities.
5.5. Challenges and prospects of climate service
Given the general developments from the study, most of the inter-viewees acknowledge the disconnection between CSs and the users of climate information, particularly in the agriculture sector. Interviews confirmed that three interrelated issues stand out to establish these missing links of mainstreaming CSs in Ghana. First of all, agro-me-teorological services are given less priority from the GMA compared to other services such as aviation and military. This is reflected in the services offered by the agency on its website. For example, according to the official government website, agro-meteorological services can only be provided on individual basis subject to levies and charges depending on the type of information requested. Many of the end users especially farmers might not be willing to pay for such agro-meteorological ser-vices. As a result, current information does not meet the needs of farmers in the agriculture sector. Secondly, and most important for mainstreaming CSs, available information is not communicated to the understanding of all. Effective CS require established technical capa-cities and active communication and exchange between information producers, translators, and user communities. A third view mostly espoused by the CSOs involves the lack of collaboration between local institutions in the production and dissemination of CS (CCAFS, IDE). In this context, CSOs’ efforts to complement government agencies in the implementation of climate-related initiatives are not harmonised.
6. Discussions and conclusion
This section discusses the empiricalfindings of the study in the light of existing scientific literature on climate change and climate services.
6.1. Perspectives of climate change in Ghana
There are different perspectives to climate change among the var-ious respondents for this study. Instigated by the low attention given to it by the government, the climate debate in Ghana was ignited by the civil society. Most respondents viewed it as a global issue which needed attention by all. While this view is the standard norm for achieving a global agreement for climate negotiations, some other respondents quite see it to be principally ignited by developed countries than de-veloping countries. These perspectives actually confirm the division in UNFCCC negotiations (Blaxekjær and Nielsen, 2015). However, con-cerns about environmental governance have always attained very ro-bust attention from the government. Respondents viewed the protection of the physical environment as a panacea to ensuring food security long before the advent of climate change. This is reflected in early legisla-tions on environment and customs surrounding common property use. Thus, this focus on environment protection could be deemed as building on the capacity to protecting the climate. In this regard, one respondent opined that“Ghana has since been focusing attention towards devel-oping a clean climate by focusing on environmental protection, and hence we are not late-comers in thefight for a clean climate”. Not-withstanding the above view, the late concentration of attention to climate change is as a result of the lack of knowledge on the climate and the possible repercussions that may ensue.
Notwithstanding the various viewpoints unravelled by the research, Ghana has had a very positive attitude towards environmental protec-tion, which forms part of the recent drive to a clean climate. All in-terviewees alluded to this fact stating the reliance of the population on the environment for its sustenance. However, climate initiatives have not had that needed attention until about the last four years ago. According to the MESTI, the Government of Ghana is committed to mainstreaming climate change into planning processes at the national, regional and local levels (MESTI, 2013). Although this is the position of the government, climate action has become slow due to competing priorities and national needs (MESTI, NDPC, MoFA). According to MoFA, the recent economic crises even makes it difficult for a self-re-liant climate proof system. All initiatives with regards to climate change have always received funding from development partners who tend to choose their priority areas. As such, these initiatives are skewed and not reflective of the country’s main comparative advantage, which is in agriculture.
6.2. Climate services as a boost for agriculture
Notwithstanding the early commitment to the environment and UNFCCC initiatives, Ghana’s agriculture is still threatened by climate change. Farmers have always depended on a traditional interpretation of weather and climate to make decisions with regards to farming and other agricultural practices. This underscores the relevance of climate information in agriculture. All respondents attest to the fact that CS is indeed important for agricultural growth in the advent of the impacts of climate change. In fact, it is a matter of urgency, to provide farmers with the necessary pieces of information and services as the starting point of any viable adaptation programme. With the agricultural sector being the most affected by the vagaries of the weather, it is most pru-dent to have prior information on weather forecasts that will enable farmers to adequately adapt to changing conditions.
In line with thefindings of this study, Other studies (Srinivasan et al., 2011; Vaughan and Dessai, 2014) are of the view that CS is an important pre-requisite for determining adaptation as it gives in-formation for policy formulation. Although this is important in framing adaptation priorities, the study further reveals the lack of agro-me-teorological data to aid farmers in decision making. While this has been the lapse in Ghana and most countries in SSA, CCAFS juxtaposes the relevance of this by exploring the cases where the elementary use of these services has impacted agro-based decisions. Climate services,
therefore, stands to be more beneficial to agricultural productivity in so many ways that will improve the livelihood of farmers in Ghana. Not only are farmers informed about what to sow, when to sow and how to sow, but they are also wholly aware of the likelihood of certain extreme events which may influence alternative livelihood patterns. The focus on climate-smart agriculture by the World Bank and CCAFS all drive home the notion of an improved information base for the farmer to influence smart agricultural decisions (FAO, 2010).
6.3. Barriers to mainstreaming climate services in Ghana
A major result of this study is the identification of shortfalls in the mainstreaming of CS in Ghana. Drawing from the gaps presented in literature on developing user-centric CS, this present study establishes a connexion. Though these barriers may exist as independent bottlenecks, there is a connexion that reinforces the difficulty in achieving a well-coordinated mainstreaming agenda. The results suggest that CS provi-sion is fragmented and less tailored for user-specific need, especially for agriculture. This calls for active regulation and reorientation of the industry to have coordinated services that will complement one another whilst identifying and eliminating loopholes and overlaps. A multi-perspective understanding of CS delivery is therefore needed to streamline CS delivery in a more sustainable way.
In thefirst place, CS should be provided to influence the decisions of farmers. However, what was observed was the non-provision of agro-meteorological information to guide farmers in decision making due in part to limited expertise as noted in the study of (Sarpong and Anyidoho, 2012). This study has therefore revealed that the low priority given to agro-meteorological information by the GMA is the bane for the inadequate prioritisation of CS in the agriculture sector. Quite distinct from the above, in circumstances where such information or services may exist, users oftenfind it difficult to interpret it to be able to influence farm-based decisions. This has been the core issue mili-tating against the use of climate information in policy-making. This finding is consistent with that of (Changnon, 2004; Srinivasan et al., 2011) whose research identified the incomprehensibility of climate information by smallholder farmers. In Ghana, the study identifies the mode of transmission of such information as the major drawback to farmers’ inability to make sense out of weather forecasts.
Furthermore, drawing from the literature and results of this study, it is evident many institutions play a role in the generation and dis-semination of CS. With regards to the agriculture sector in Ghana, the study establishes the lack of coordination in the production and dis-semination of usable CS. Unlike other sectors, the agriculture sector is one that requires whatDilling and Lemos (2011)describes as a‘best fit’ between the knowledge, institutions and the users in service produc-tion. This partly influenced the Ghana Forest Certification Standard (GFCS) to include‘co-production’ of climate information into the fra-mework.
Akin to the political economy of climate change, the study further indicates that, though CS may be an important area to mainstream and focus attention on for any adaptation programme, it is faced with other development needs. As observed byNeumayer (2003), poor countries are pre-occupied with other needs than the focus on the environment. The mainstreaming CS thus falls victim and may not be of immediate priority to the government and its institutions.
Finally, literature confirms that the effects of climate change have been experienced for a long time and indigenous ways of coping with it have been developed to suit livelihoods. As such, the use of climate information comes into conflict with these traditional ways of farming communities not only in Ghana, but other parts of SSA and beyond. Lemos et al. (2002)confirm this when his study found that indigenous farmers in North-Eastern Brazil prefer forecasts from rain prophets compared to forecasts by the meteorological organisation. This study, therefore, identifies this as a major challenge as interviews with the MoFA revealed that farmers tend to rely on each other for information
regarding when to plough, when to sow, what to sow and when to harvest.Antwi-Agyei et al. (2012)recorded a similarfinding in both Upper East and Brong Ahafo regions of Ghana. Their research revealed that farmers relied on one another for climate information. They communicate with each other about farming decisions; when they think the rains will set in, the kind of crop to sow during a particular point in a season, which land to plough and use for which particular crop, among others.
7. Conclusion
The main objective of this study is to investigate the sources of CS in Ghana in order to understand the role of CS providers in CS main-streaming and how that aids the agricultural sector especially for smallholder operators. In doing this, the study relied on various sta-keholders involved in the provision of CS.
In assessing the institutional setup, the study revealed a number of traits, firstly, there is a poor collaboration between relevant stake-holders in the production, dissemination, and use of CS. Secondly, and more importantly, the current CS delivery is based on national and regional level forecasts which are mostly based on averages without recourse to tailor-made climate information for local community. This has therefore made climate-smart decision making by farmers’ proble-matic as they continue to rely on insufficient information and local knowledge. Thirdly, the current scope of CS delivery does not prioritise agro-meteorological information. This is reflected in the service de-livery system of the Ghana Meteorological Agency, the main govern-ment institution responsible for the provision of climate forecasts. As a result of the above problems, progress in agricultural development in mitigating and adapting to climate change has rather been slow. Possible pathways to offsetting these problems lie in the holistic streamlining of agro-meteorological information by projecting it high at the policy-making level as well as strengthening local stakeholder in-stitutions through collaborations. The current state of CS at least pre-sents some opportunities for mainstreaming if the needed policies are put in place and implemented accordingly. Appropriate efforts toward a development of a National Framework of Climate Services is imperative for the agriculture sector of Ghana.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online athttps:// doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2019.01.007.
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