Operation Feed Yourself

Anna Lemmenmeier reviewed Ghana’s most popular food program_Operation Feed Yourself (OFY) under Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong and his National Redemption Council (NRC) launched in February 1972. The main aim of the program was to make Ghana self-sufficient in food supply. This is a program that can work again not just in Ghana but also almost everywhere in the world. 

According to National Geographic Magazine, by 2050 we will need to feed two billion more people. Now, the question is about how those two billion more people would be fed. If people are to continue on the current trend of cultivating more farm lands, definitely there would be depletion of natural resources, including the soils and water and natural ecosystems because we have to produce more food. And obviously losing then in the process a lot of the global biodiversity. 


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The Global Goals, specifically Goal 2 explicitly mentions sustainable agriculture. Sustainability of Agriculture means that, the activity must not only produce quality nutritious food for human consumption but also protect the environment, human communities and animal welfare. So there have been a lot of innovative ways and wild ideas about how to promote sustainable agriculture to feed more mouths. It is therefore imperative to cast our minds back to the 70s, as mentioned earlier, to look into how the concept of "Operation Feed Yourself (OFY)" can help the situation at hand. Utilizing pieces of lands within Urban and Peri-urban communities to cultivate staple foods to feed people is the basics of the program. OFY would have several advantages on families including the ability to save some money out of that backyard farm. The concept of every school having a garden is also an aspect of it. 

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In fact, this concept isn't 'rocket science', almost everyone in a way has thought of this before, but what is very important is the organized spirit to  ignite it at all levels and run it successfully to achieve its main objective. 

This is a photo of the back of Noguchi Conference hall at Legon, Accra. This small piece of land could be beneficial. Currently it is being used to grow lawns as usual whiles it can be used productively to contribute to feeding two or three mouths. Every big building in our cities and towns have such spaces available which can support vegetables and others. The ripple effect of such small efforts put together is very obvious.
FAO has stated that, one third of the food produced worldwide goes to waste. This is another big issue but when people are engaged to also contribute to the production in their own small ways, then they will become responsible in terms of consumption. 

There may be more aspects of the OFY program but the bottom line of cultivating pieces of lands cannot be overlooked. Agriculture oriented organizations can lead the process of bringing back this program because it has the potential of contributing to sustainable food production. 

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Author Clifford