Browsing by Author "Owusu-Ansah, Emmanuel"

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    Financing small-scale farmers in the Techiman District, Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana
    (1989-05-08) Owusu-Ansah, Emmanuel
    The desire for food self-sufficiency in C-ham has been a dream of all succeeding governments since independence. However, this dream has become an enigma, for a long time, as the country continues to rely on massive food importation and food aid to supplement her food requirements. One way of realising this dream of self-sufficiency in the country’s food needs is by increasing the productivity of the small-scale farmer. However, the growth andtdeve1opmen of the small-scale farmer is beset with many problems, most important of them being inadequate financing. Small-scale farmers in the Techiman District are no exception to this problem. The study, therefore, set out to analyse the characteristics of the financial constraints facing the small-scale farmers in the Techiman District and the reaction of the financial institutions in solving their financial problems. It was revealed from the study that most of the farmers are illiterates, use traditional implements, depend on rain-fed agriculture, have limited farm sizes and depend on family hands as farm labour. The characteristics of the existing sources of finance also revealed that the formal sources of finance play an insignificant role in financing small-scale farmers in the district not only because of their rigid lending procedures but also due to the poor repayment rate, diversion of loans from the purposes for which they were acquired, refusal to pay the loans and the dispersed nature of the small-scale farmers. These factors combine to make the banks very repulsive in granting loans to farmers. Informal sources such as money-lenders, personal savings, friends and relatives and cash advances from middlemen and traders, therefore, form the backbone for financing small-scale farmers. It was revealed that the informal sources are not only unreliable but also charge high interest rates which means that after repayment of the loan most farmers cannot have enough to meet their social expenditure and for further reinvestment in agriculture. It is against the background of the unreliability and. the high rate of interests of the informal sources that recommendations have been offered to help small-scale farmers get out of their financial problem. These recommendations include the need to increase extension services, formation of co-operative associations, fanner education, opening of more rural banks, the integration of formal and informal sources of finance and improvement in the marketing and distribution networks. It is hoped that these recommendations could help in solving the financial constraints, to the growth and development of small-scale farmers in the Techiman District and. other food producing areas in Ghana.
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    Population, poverty and environmental degradation: the Ghanaian experience
    (2001-12-14) Owusu-Ansah, Emmanuel
    The rapid growth of the urban centres in the country, in terms of numbers and space, is creating a lot of environmental problems for the country. Firstly, natural resources in the form of forests, grass1ans, and even wetlands are now giving way to human settlements and infrastructural development. A second major environmental problem associated with urbanization in Ghana is the creation of waste products. The management of which has been the bane of the country. As a developing country, Ghana has been constrained financially in managing the domestic waste in the cities efficiently. The residents are also helpless in handling the waste since most of them do not have the financial resources to either use environmentally-benign facilities or to manage waste in efficient manner. The result of all these is mirrored in the fact that our surroundings are engulfed in the heaps of rubbish and even faeces. However, there have not been many quantitative analyses of this issue iii this country. In this dissertation, data on 150 heads of households from 4 communities in Accra and Kumasi have been used to investigate the relationship between population density and the levels of income of residents on one hand and the environmental pollution in such areas on the other. The findings of the study have confirmed the notion that population pressure and poverty are major agents of environmental pollution in the urban centres in Ghana. The target groups of the study are the residents of the urban centres of the country and the policymakers of such areas. It is intended that the residents would take a cue from the revelations of the study in terms of the health problems associated with environmental pollution. it is also hoped that the policymakers, especially the chief executives of the district assemblies, who are agents of developments would consider providing environmentally- friendly, public waste disposal facilities, especially at places being regarded as deprived areas
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    Substrate Ultilization for Bioremediation of Hydrocarbon Compounds
    (2012-06-20) Owusu-Ansah, Emmanuel
    We design, evaluate and compare the biodegradation performance of the application of compost (made up of some dead plants), Poultry manure (Organic) and inorganic chemical fertilizer (Urea) in the bioremediation of soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbon. Four different levels of nitrogen application were augmented for each of the substrates. A combination of treatments consisting of the application of poultry manure, Chemical fertilizer, and Compost was evaluated ex situ during a period of 8 weeks of remediation. The aim was to (i) find the best performance of substrate for the process, (ii) the level of nitrogen which stimulate performance (ii) find if there exists a significant difference in both the substrate and the level of nitrogen (iv) the best combination of substrate and level of nitrogen good for bioremediation process using ANOVA and Tukey’s test of difference. Contaminated soil containing oil and total petroleum hydrocarbon with different levels was bioremediated by blending of the hydrocarbon contaminated soil with portions of compost, poultry manure and fertilizer. After eight weeks of remediation, the most efficient contributor to hydrocarbon decomposition was poultry manure, followed by compost and fertilizer respectively. Moreover, in all the four (4) fixed nitrogen levels, it was found that, the higher the level of nitrogen the better the rate of degradation. For the substrate used, poultry manure-hydrocarbon blend recorded the least residual of Oil/ grease and TPH values followed by the compost substrate and with fertilizer blend recording the highest.