Project Meeting on Building Vegetable Farmers' Resilience to Climate Change (FruitBunch) Held at UCC

A two-day project meeting on Building Vegetable farmers' Resilience to Climate Change (FruitBunch) has been held at the University of Cape Coast (UCC). The meeting was held from June 9 to 10, 2022.

The FruitBunch project seeks to help vegetable farmers adapt to climate change and enhance vegetable production through research on heat, drought and disease tolerant vegetable varieties, soil health, irrigation and water management in vegetable production systems in Ghana.

The project is a collaboration among the University of Cape Coast, University of Ghana, Technical University of Denmark and Aarhus University and is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and administered by Danida Fellowship Centre.

The project is coordinated by Prof. Mathias Neumann Andersen from Aarhus University. Speaking virtually at the event, Prof Andersen said the project would investigate using local organic resources such as oil palm empty fruit bunch to improve soil fertility and increase carbon sequestration.

He added, "The project will screen and select vegetable varieties to adapt to increasing temperature, drought, and pest and disease incidence.” Prof Andersen stressed the project would also analyse and identify inclusive and sustainable business models for vegetable production.

A group photo of participants after the meeting

The Dean of the School of Agriculture, Prof. Henry De-Graft Acquah, whom Prof Julius Hagan represented, opened the meeting. In the address read on his behalf, the Dean observed that vegetable production in Ghana was declining, despite the increased cultivated area. He identified poor soil quality, droughts, heat, pests and disease stress, all worsened by climate change as some factors causing the decline.

He said most of the country's soils were acidic due to farmers' continuous application of inorganic fertilisers. Therefore organic amendments such as oil palm biochar will be instrumental in remediating these soils. He said the production and use of biochar would help manage and handle waste, produce rich organic fertiliser for the soil, and serve as economic empowerment for farmers.

Prof Acquah noted the fruits and vegetable industry has enormous prospects to widen the country's foreign exchange earnings and commended the researchers for embarking on this research. The Dean also called on all stakeholders, including government and development partners, to invest by providing adequate research funding into the vegetable sector.

Three departments from the School of Agriculture, UCC, participated in the FruitBunch Project. They include; the Departments of Crop Science (Profs Michael O. Adu and Paul A. Asare), Soil Science (Prof Kwame A. Frimpong and Dr Kofi Atiah) and Agricultural Economics and Extension (Dr Alexander T. Nuer).

At the event, post-graduate students on the project from UCC, University of Ghana and Aarhus University presented their research. Introducing these presentations, the project coordinator at UCC, Prof Michael O. Adu, said the Fruitbunch project was designed to train five (5) PhD and over ten (10) MPhil students during the project's five-year span.

Source: Documentation and Information Section-UCC