Professor Fr. Godfrey Nzamujo, a reverend priest and computer engineer, has demanded a systematic paradigm shift in the food and agricultural systems to solve the problem of food security.
To solve the present issues with food security facing the nation, he said that the country's traditional methods of food production and agriculture were inadequate and posed a significant threat to food security. He thus advocated for a radical transformation.
This week, Prof. Nzamujo, who founded the Songhai Center in Benin, spoke at the inaugural Graphic National Development Series (GNDS) event in Kumasi.
"Transforming Ghana's agriculture with domestic solutions for food security" was the focus of the conference.
The Catholic Priest who revolutionised sustainable farming in Benin and other parts of Africa made submissions on the subject of "Producing food with a surplus for a rainy day: The integrated approach," arguing that we needed to switch from a piecemeal, disjointed approach to agriculture to a fully integrated ecological system where everything interacted.
Prof. Nzamujo, who shared the End Hunger Award with the late former President Jerry John Rawlings, remarked, "We must acknowledge that traditional agriculture is inefficient due to the poor utilisation of solar energy in the conventional system.
He stated that Africa now faced an existential threat as a result of the present climatic catastrophe and the detrimental effects of the traditional food and agricultural system.
Model is flawed
According to the ECOWAS Commission, the present agricultural model has become unsustainable due to its reliance on low-cost labour, uncertain livelihoods, and overexploitation of natural resources, according to Prof. Nzamujo, whose centre focuses on organic agriculture.
He was certain that investing in sustainable agriculture methods will cost around 1.15 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the majority of African nations during the following 15 years.
He said that investing in sustainable agriculture techniques would be less expensive and more beneficial for the government than taking no action at all, noting that the cost of inaction on the side of governments in the sub-region was in the range of 12 to 13% of their GDPs.
The professor berated Africa for its lack of preparation after preaching the need for a fresh start for Africa to realise its goal of achieving food security.
In contrast to Africa, he noted, where people in the West always prepared for winter because they had it, the difficulty in Africa was "the winter gap."
We don't often plan ahead for bad weather, but with the new beginning, we must since we can no longer share poverty, he said.
He said that the ongoing importation of food from abroad did the nation great harm since "every time we import something from elsewhere, we are generating jobs there."
"We continue to import poverty while exporting prosperity. We need to quit doing that "He was tense.
To reduce the over-dependence on imported goods, which harms domestic products, Prof. Nzamujo urged people to buy goods and food that are made locally.
Microbial
In his discussion on future agriculture, he emphasised the importance of microorganisms in both the food and agricultural systems.
The resuscitation of robust, diversified, and active native microbial communities, according to him, is the greatest approach to enhancing the production of biomass and the carbon content of the soil in Africa, which is the basis for soil regeneration.
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