The Bono East Regional Minister, Francis Owusu Antwi, has called for intensified carbon credit activities to help reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

He explained that carbon credits allow industries to emit a regulated amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, while promoting measures that ultimately reduce overall emissions.

Mr Antwi expressed concern about the growing impact of climate change in the country, noting changes in weather patterns, extreme temperatures, erratic rainfall, and the increasing frequency and intensity of weather events such as floods, dry spells, and thunderstorms.

He noted that those impacts had serious implications on the nation’s economy, food productivity, and economic livelihoods and required urgent measures of mitigation.

“So, there is an urgent need to introduce and mainstream carbon credit activities,” Mr Antwi stated during a presentation of some tree seedlings to farmers at Nkoranza in the region.

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture presented over one million economic tree seedlings to be distributed to farmers in the Bono, Bono East, and Savannah regions under the Agroforestry for Carbon Credit project.

Mr. Antwi said Bono East was contributing to carbon offsetting activities by participating in the National Tree Planting Exercise, saying that the region had planted over 355,480 tree seedlings.

He indicated that the 11 political administrative districts and municipal assemblies in the region had also been ordered to enact bye-laws to fight bushfires, saying that the regional directorate of agriculture was also promoting climate-smart agriculture technologies and innovations.

He said the directorate was encouraging minimum tillage practices, agroforestry, and burying of fertilisers in the soil, rather than placing them on topsoil.

Mr. Antwi said that as the leading producer of cashews and mangoes, the region was absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

He commended the government for the implementation of the Feed Ghana, Nkoko Nketenkete programmes as well as the irrigation and buffer stock projects.

Mr. Antwi urged beneficiaries of the Agroforestry for Carbon Credit Project to adhere to the governing principles of the project and urged the project managers to endeavour to release resources to the beneficiaries on time.

Madam Anitha Narahari, the Deputy Country Director for the World Food Programme, emphasised the programme’s dedication to building resilient livelihoods, strengthening food systems, and creating long-term economic opportunities for smallholder farmers across Ghana.

She said the implementation of Phase II of the Changing Lives Transformation Fund Agroforestry Carbon Credit Programme was expected to impact approximately 15,000 farmers, with 10,000 farmers directly receiving seedlings.