• Ghana’s potential in the area of agriculture is undisputed.
• The authorities are making efforts to maximize Ghanian green lands for subsistence and commercial purposes.
• Bamboo and rattan are invaluable plants grown in Africa.
• Demand has been placed on the influences of the Queen Mothers of Ghana to enhance the growing of the cash plants.

Efforts are going into the restoration of Ghana’s landscapes, as well as into the lasting fight against global warming; and the country’s Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, in collab­oration with the Forest Plantation Fund Board, organized a two-day preparation workshop for Asanteman queen mothers on bamboo farms development.

This supports the government’s tree planting works, as at least 22,671,696 trees planted in 2022 outdid the government’s target of 20 million trees across the 16 regions of Ghana. The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources of Ghana, Samuel Abu Jinapor, said that the government hopes to plant no fewer than 10 million trees this year under the Green Ghana program. Speaking on the downward review of the number of trees to be planted, the Minister said that government wants to be more dedicated and devoted to nurturing the over 30 million trees planted already in recent years so that all the trees can reach maturity as soon as possible.

The workshop, strategically placed to leverage on the immense traditional and political powers of the revered queen mothers’ stools, follows the  government’s prior regeneration moves, and comes after the Minister had visited Ashanti Region in De­cember last year to enlist the support of the queen mothers in fighting against unlawful mining, and to promise them that they will be integral parts of the 2023 Green Ghana agenda aimed at planting bam­boos in marketable amounts.

While speaking with the queen mothers at the workshop, in Kumasi, on the 9th of March, the Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources responsible for Lands and For­estry, Mr. Benito Owusu-Bio, expanded on the pertinence of the workshop to the govern­ment since it acknowledges the potential of bamboo and rattan resources as valuable materials that can better the live­lihoods of several scores of inhabitants around forest ecosystems.

He went on to expound the benefits of the workshop, among other things, clarifying that queen mothers will be armed with good knowledge and insight into the degree to which bamboo and rattan in Ghana could aid sustenance of communities; he pointed to the vast prospects in the area of job creation, especially for youngies and women alike. He believed that the workshop would birth critical outcomes as it would increase the number of stakeholders, in government and private settings, putting in efforts to meet the planting goals in the country’s Forest Plantation Strate­gy, which plans to establish more than 500,000 hectares of new bamboo plantations between 2015 -2040.

Owusu-Bio reassured the queen mothers that the first sensitization package was simply to kick off, that the Minis­try would assemble more resources to spread the program to other regions so as to optimize the bamboo industry. “I wish to assure you of the unflinching support of my Minister and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to support this initiative. We will do our maximum best to provide the necessary technical and logistical support to promote this bamboo plantation development enter­prise,” he said. He also counselled the Forestry Commission, the Director of In­ternational Association of Bam­boo and Rattan Development, INBAR, and the Plantation Fund Board to continue providing the needed backing to ensure that the program succeeds.

The queen mother of the Mampong traditional area, Nana Agyakuma Difie II and Chairman admonished the queen mothers to see the programs as an opportunity to advance, as well as a responsibility to their children and yet-to-come generations seeing that with one swoop, global warming is reduced and the government’s reafforesta­tion agenda gets a shot in the arm. While motivating them to take up the project heartily and make it a reality, she stressed that the bamboo project was not exclusive to Asanteman queen mothers but for all Ghanian queen mothers and women traditional authority figures countrywide.

In his own statement, the Board Chairman of the Forestry Plantation Fund Board and Chief of Chiraa traditional area, Nana Osei Yaw Barima, promised a smooth and cooperative partnership with the queen mothers to see the bamboo project through to a resoundingly successful end. Mr Joseph Osiakwan, the Technical Director for Forestry at the Ministry, in his short presentation on the justification for the workshop, expressed hope that queen mothers will have adequate knowledge on growing healthy bam­boo and making vital marketable products from the plant by the end of the two-day workshop.

Bamboo and rattan come in handy in the making of fanciful Furnitures, mats, decorations, as well as other household and fashion items, and with these products boldly taking their places in the global market, producers of bamboo and rattan are in for a swell time. With about one million hectares of home-grown bamboo, Ethiopia sits kingly as the biggest bamboo grower in Africa. It houses about 67% of all African bamboo.