It is also to enhance environmental management by reminding and educating community members, farmers, targeting children and also including adults of the causes, effects and the behavioral changes and practices to be adopted to minimize the incidents of bush fires.

Dr Edmund Kyei Akoto- Danso, Change Adaptation Manager at GASIP said this in an interview in Tamale.

He noted that about 5,000 people were directly reached with the sensitization messages on the practices to be adopted to minimize the incidents of bush fires.

He said so far, GASIP has established Community-based seedling nurseries in 20 districts in six regions of the country to diversify sources of income for farmers while improving and sustaining the local climate, leading to the overall economic empowerment of the communities as part of it implementation.

Dr Akoto- Danso indicated that GASIP has also enhanced the infrastructural capacity of Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMET), by spending approximately
600,000 US Dollars to install 12 Automatic Weather Stations across northern Ghana.

According to him, the GASIP in collection with GMET collaboration has resulted in improved services, with regular and accurate daily weather forecasts for farmers, to plan their farming activities more effectively.

He said GASIP has also supported some key Institutions across Northern Ghana, to undertake sensitization on environmental safeguards, with a special focus on bush fires.

“The commitment from these institutions at the district level, including the Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Police Service, National Commission for Civic Education, National Disaster Management Organization, Ghana Education Service, Opinion Leaders, Local FM stations and the District Department of Agriculture is remarkable and pleasing to note.” Dr Akoto- Danso said.

According to him, the country is facing a host of adverse environmental challenges and impacts, particularly land degradation in most parts of the country.
“This phenomenon is attributable to human activities, including the cutting of trees without replacement, irresponsible and uncontrolled bush burning and the use of bad farming systems and practices”. He added

He said these activities are rapidly destroying the country’s vital natural resources, ecosystems, and biodiversity, which is eventually leading to decline in soil fertility, and low crop yields.

Dr Akoto- Danso said GASIP has been a major contributor to national efforts in addressing the negative impacts of climate change.

He said that GASIP has also implemented Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) demonstration plots which have been established across the country to provide hands-on training for farmers to adopt sustainable and Climate Smart practices.

The GASIP is being implemented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) with funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) loan and Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Program (ASAP) grant.

The aim of GASIP is to contribute to reducing poverty in rural areas of Ghana,with the development objective of enhancing the profitability and climate change resilience of agribusinesses and smallholders.