Speaking at a closing workshop on a project to ensure landscape and environmental agility across the nation, he explained that safeguarding natural assets was essential to ensuring that agriculture could continue to feed the public in future.

“Agricultural growth must not come at the expense of nature,” he said, calling for more efforts in environmental protection, agriculture and sustainable development in the country. 

Dubbed the “Landscapes and Environmental Agility across the Nation (LEAN)” project, the European Union (EU) sponsored initiative is a four-year initiative aimed at supporting national and local efforts to conserve biodiversity, improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, building climate resilience, and reducing emissions from land-use changes across Ghana's high forest, savannah, and transition zones.

It ended with the planting of one million trees and seedlings across various regions, contributing to reforestation.

The project, which was led by a consortium of partners led by Rainforest Alliance, World Vision Ghana, Tropenbos Ghana and EcoCare Ghana, has also improved biodiversity across 250,000 hectares under sustainable land management and contributed to environmental and natural resources management and building rural communities' resilience against climate change.

Mr Mina said the project also contributed to conserving biodiversity and improving the livelihoods of some local communities in the Savannah, Transition and Forest belts.

He added that through a Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) approach, the project had restored over 420 hectares of degraded lands in communities, created buffers against bushfires, improved biodiversity to support grazing, enhanced livelihoods and restored 255 acres of on-farm agroforestry sites.

Also, he said with over 3,000 members in 120 groups - 2,194 women and 679 men the Savings for Transformation (ST) initiative under the LEAN project had raised over GH¢ 2 million from 45 communities between 2022 and 2024.

“These alternative income-generating activities include beekeeping, fisheries, mushroom cultivation, small ruminants, snail rearing, piggeries, and vegetable farming,” he stated, adding that these achievements aligned with the European Union Green Deal, Global Gateway Strategy and Ghana's own commitment under the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Consortium Lead, Abena Dufie Woode, expressed satisfaction about the project, adding that  two landscape management boards had been established in the Savannah landscape.

She said, up in the savannah area, where most of the farmers were into cashews, the feedback was that the LEAN project had helped improve the cashew value chain.

The Country Director, Rainforest Alliance, Nicholas Jengre, said through World Vision Ghana the project had also introduced smallholder farmers to the Village Savings and Loans Scheme.