Focus Group Discussions in Ghana

During November and December 2022, the PhD student Roman Hinz from the German partner institution University of Kassel started his fieldwork in Ghana. Together with GreenGaDe members of CSIR-FORIG, they conducted focus group discussions with farmers from eight rural communities in the savanna and moist semi-deciduous forest agro-ecological zones of Ghana.

The aim was to explore smallholder farmers' perception of climate change and responses to ecological variation effects on their livelihood activities. Results suggest that smallholder farmers use various coping strategies, on-farm and off-farm adaptation and mitigation actions, to ameliorate the negative impacts of climate and ecological changes on their livelihood. However, a lack of key elements like setting the right incentives at policy level are needed to trigger action to further reduce emissions from the agricultural and forestry sector.

The field work has been a great success with fruitful discussions. Stay tuned for Roman's second field research in 2023 and upcoming results from expert interviews.