Feeding Millions of Ghanaians: Is Organic Crop Production the Answer?

Abstract

The science of growing crops has been refined and perfected over time to accommodate for the ever-increasing human population. In the early day of agriculture, crops were mostly grown organically however with the growth in population, lesser area of land became available for crop production.

Food insecurity caused by rapid population growth has resulted in the use of many synthetic chemicals and gene manipulation techniques to maximize the potential of plants. With the current population of Ghana at more than 25 million and rising, an important question must be addressed: What is the most sustainable and cost effective way to feed the people? Though most modern crop production methods have resulted in increases in productivity, the majority of the chronically hungry are small scale farmers who produce much of what they eat and are often too poor to purchase inputs.

In fact, food security is not simply a question of producing enough food to meet demand. It can be defined as a condition where all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Although there are many types of agricultural practices, they can be generalized as sustainable or conventional based on the techniques used. Conventional crop production is a broad term that has a number of definitions, but a crop can be classified as conventional if synthetic chemicals are used to maintain the plants. Sustainable / organic farming on the other hand aims to produce a number of crops, without the use of synthetic chemicals or fertilizers, while enhancing soil composition and promoting biodiversity.

The expected population growth in Ghana and land demand means that low-yielding crop production systems are unrealistic options. When discussing crop production systems, it is of utmost importance to examine, without prejudice, the system that can contribute to food sufficiency and security for the present and future. This lecture discusses organic crop production and examines whether it can produce enough food to meet future demand of Ghana