A recent report released under the Resilience Against Climate Change Social Transformation Research and Policy Advocacy (REACH-STR) project, paints a concerning picture of livelihoods of people living in northern Ghana, due to the cascading effects of climate change.
According to the report, if current temperature trends continue, around 2.6 million people are projected to migrate from the northern regions to the south by 2050.
Certainly, this migration is driven by the anticipated rise in temperatures by 1.5°C and the expected reduction and unpredictability of rainfall in the region.
The report underscores that climate change is already a lived experience for many households in northern Ghana, with severe consequences for their livelihoods.
Beyond the threat of migration, it highlights the urgent need for practical, inclusive, and targeted interventions to build resilience, reduce vulnerability, and mitigate the deepening climate crisis.
In response to these challenges, The Ghanaian Times strongly supports the recent rollout of the ChatBox climate information application in selected communities across the five regions in the north – North East, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West and Northern.
The app is designed to provide farmers with critical weather information, helping them adapt to climate-related challenges and revolutionise farming practices in the region.
The rollout, which took place last Thursday across some selected communities in the northern regions, was aimed at testing the app’s effectiveness and assessing how easily farmers can understand and use the data provided.
The roll out of the app is based on the needs assessment survey that shows that 47 per cent of Ghanaians in the north use smartphones, that provides a viable platform for the app’s dissemination.
Sylvester Ayambila, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University for Development Studies, emphasized the app’s potential to enhance food security, reduce migration, and improve the livelihoods of farmers in the regions.
According to the university don, the app is integrated with local knowledge with scientific data to provide the farmers with actionable insights on weather patterns, to enable them to make informed decisions about planting, fertiliser applications and crop management.
Furthermore, in the words of the associate professor of agriculture economics, the deployment of the apps will help “revolutionise” farming practices in the northern Ghana towards sustainable agriculture productivity and poverty alleviation.
The Ghanaian Times recognizes the importance of technology in addressing the unpredictable weather patterns caused by climate change.
It is our hope that farmers in the northern regions will embrace and effectively utilise the app.
However, it is equally important for the developers of the technology to ensure that it is user-friendly, considering the diverse demographics of the targeted regions.
The deployment of the apps is one side of the innovative approach to make farming lively and enticing, the other side of the equation has to do with internet reliability to sustain the application of the apps.
We, therefore, entreat the developers of the app to work closely with internet service providers, to ensure reliable internet availability for the effective and efficient application of the apps.
The Ghanaian Times also calls on the central government to take keen interest in the deployment of this technology and explore ways to support its full adoption by farmers, so that they can better manage the challenges posed by climate change.