Ghanaian Dynamic Agroforestry Case Study
A Ghanaian business buying raw materials from thousands of small and medium sized farmers has worked to produce Organic and fairly traded products since the early 2000s. In recent years they have been pursuing a dynamic agroforestry strategy with a sub-set of these farmers.
This project involves encouraging farmers to switch from mono-crop palm-oil production to the simultaneous cultivation of up to 30 crops, includng palm-oil, cocoa, food crops, diverse cash-crops and live-stock feeds. This cropping pattern allows substantial up-lift of agricultural productivity, coupled with processes which replenish the soil quality and rewild the ecosystem of the farm.
As part of this project the business needed to keep records of the crops which were planted by farmers across thousands of farm-plots in rural Ghana. This was needed to track of the success of different experimental cropping patterns over a multi-year period. Geo-location systems were used to pin-point the location and sizes of farm-fields. Data capture systems recorded both the crops that farmers were growing and the seedlings that were distributed to them.
All this data was managed with Orixa Apps on laptops and tablet computers. Data systems were used by multiple field-officers, enabling the Project and Business management teams to maintain accurate real-time data about farmer and project activities.
The project is still on-going, and has been successful to-date, with several phases of expansion taking on new farmers. A critical aspect of the project is that it is housed within a successful international export business with many years of success. The business is invested in the long-term success of the project.
Links to descriptions of the project
Detailed article about the project:
Dr Bronners Transforms Farmland in Ghana
Blog about the project:
Our Journey to dynamic agroforestry
Blog about the sustainable projects of the business:
Project Background: Photos from 2011 - 2019
Seedling Distributon |
Palm Harvest |
Geo-location work (2011)
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Project management
Since 2018 the project has been substantially expanded, due to its success in raising farmer yields and income. As well as the project management, Orixa systems are also used to gather data about household income and livelihoods, which track improvements to farmers' living standards as a result of the project. |