The 3rd Annual Conference of the Ghana Association of Agricultural Economists

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The 3rd Annual Conference of the Ghana Association of Agricultural Economists (GAAEs) dubbed GAAE 2019 Conference would be held at the University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana from Wednesday 24th July to Saturday 27th July 2019.

Sustainable agriculture has been explained severally as encompassing the production of food,fiber, other plant and animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment,public health, human communities, and animal welfare.

Practitioners of sustainable agriculture seek to integrate three main objectives into their work: a healthy environment, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. Every person involved in the food and agriculture system—growers, processors, distributors, retailers, consumers, and waste managers as well as service providers and policy makers —can play a role in ensuring a sustainable agricultural system. Improving land management through the widespread adoption of sustainable practices of land use; reaching farmers with knowledge needed to improve global agriculture; providing/improving rural access of framers to financial services, especially microcredit, help them manage their production process more reliably and at less cost. Other important contributory factors to sustainable agriculture that cannot be ignored include building local storage facilities and transportation mechanisms, including cold chain storage for food preservation, and educating the public on sustainable consumption and production needs in order to manage pre- and post-harvest losses. Creating the enabling environment for practitioners, particularly farmers, to access markets and receive equitable price treatment, encourage co-operative approaches to marketing for smallholders, as well as improving smallholder farmers’ marketing skills through entrepreneurship training are relevant for strengthening sustainable agricultural practices. The theme of the conference therefore has been chosen to focus on agricultural finance, markets and training that creates job opportunities, particularly to the youth, within the framework of a sustainable agricultural system.
The theme of the Conference is ‘’Sustainable Agriculture for National Development: Finance, Markets and Job Creation’’.

The following are the Sub themes:

  • 1. Markets: Input and output markets (include or capture value chain analysis); domestic and international Agribusiness trade; output marketing; post-harvest management.
  • 2. Job Creation: Training and creating jobs in agriculture for the youth for national development/exploring the entrepreneurial drive of youth/livelihood diversification/ Partnerships for delivery of outputs from research & development.
  • 3. Finance: Micro finance; venture capital/long term investment; crowd funding concept; foreign direct investments (FDI) in Agriculture; Agricultural insurance.

Invited keynote presentation and panel discussion sessions include:

  • 1. Sustainable agriculture: Ecological versus genetic intensification, relevance and perspectives for socio-economic development of Ghana.
  • 2. Job creation in Agri-prenuership for the youth.
  • 3. Modernizing farmers or farming: where should the emphasis be?

The Local Organizing Committee on behalf of the Association invite researchers to submit abstract of their papers for consideration and presentation at the conference. Papers with emphasis on sustainable agriculture on the above sub-themes are strongly encouraged. Students are strongly encouraged to submit their abstracts for consideration. Outstanding students’ papers presented might receive awards.

Abstracts would be considered under the following options:

- Option 1: Submit abstracts for consideration for Conference Oral Presentation. Abstract reviewed and recommended/rejected for full paper submission. Review submitted full paper and select for either Oral or Poster Presentation. Papers rejected for full paper submission may be considered for Poster Presentation.

- Option 2: Direct submission of abstract for consideration for Poster Presentation.
Important Dates for abstract and papers submission and consideration

Items Date Option 1 Date Option 2
Call for Abstracts (Extended) Nov 05, 2018 Nov 05, 2018
Papers submission Deadline Feb 05, 2019 Mar 05, 2019
Decision on abstracts/posters Mar 05, 2019 April 05, 2019
Deadline for submission of recommended full papers May 06, 2019 --
Decision on full papers submitted for either Oral Presentation or Poster Presentation) May 20, 2019 --
- - -

 

All abstracts (clearly marked as either submitting under Option 1 or Option 2) should be submitted to entifos@yahoo.com
Research Team or Institution who would like to organize a panel session on special topic may submit such topic(s) for the consideration. Submission Deadline for special topic is March 15, 2019. Discussion with submitting Research Team or Institution and Decision completed by April 30, 2019.

Other Important Dates:
Early Birds registration:
Details of Conference programme would be available in May 2019

The structure for the extended abstract:

  • - Title of Paper
  • - Abstract (200 words max)
  • - Key words (5 keys max)
  • - Introduction (100 - 250 words max)
  • - Methodology (100 - 250 words max)
  • - Results (100 - 250 words max)
  • - Discussion and Conclusion (100 - 250 words max)

Conference details and abstract submission requirements is available at https://goo.gl/MBukno  or a link at http://cbas.ug.edu.gh/

For all enquiries about the Conference, please, Contact:
Conference Convener: Dr. Irene S. Egyir (iegyir@ug.edu.gh) OR
LOC Chair Dr. Akwasi Mensah-Bonsu (amensah-bonsu@ug.edu.gh)

We look forward to meeting you and networking at Legon