Background

The Forestry Commission of Ghana has adopted forest plantations as a strategy to ensure landscape restoration, enhance environmental quality and develop a sustainable resource base to satisfy future timber demands. One of the reforestation programmes is the modified taungya system (MTS).

Project Objectives

The project is titled “Improving smallholders’ food and income security by introducing non-timber forest products in reforestation schemes and tree-crop farms: A collaborative learning process in Ghana”.  It is a three year project running from 2016 – 2019 and officially started in mid-January 2016.
Overall objective: To enhance food and income security of MTS farmers and tree farmers in off-reserve areas after canopy closure.
Main research question: How can farmers’ year-round food and income security be improved after canopy closure through the integration of non-timber forest products in their tree farms
Specific objective:To generate knowledge and build capacity that enables the integration and production of shade-tolerant NTFPs (black pepper, grains of paradise and honey) in on- and off-reserve tree farms and their successful processing and marketing.

 

The Forestry Commission of Ghana has adopted forest plantations as a strategy to ensure landscape restoration, enhance environmental quality and develop a sustainable resource base to satisfy future timber demands. One of the reforestation programmes is the modified taungya system (MTS); a co-management system between the Forestry Commission and smallholder farmers that allows intercropping of timber and food crops. It entitles farmers to 100% of the food produce and a 40% share in the timber revenues in return for their contribution to tree planting, maintenance and protection. The MTS contributes to contribues to alleviating the scarcity of farming land and improving households’ livelihoods, Creating a legal source of future timber supply and also its contribution to creating climate-smart landscapes. However challenges have also been reported. One of these is the lack of mid-term benefits for farmers after canopy closure, when food crops can no longer be grown.