Sustainable Irrigated Agriculture Pathways for Ghana

Abstract

This study applied Ghana’s Climate, Land, Energy and Water systems (CLEWs) modelling framework, underpinned by the Open-Source Energy Modelling System (OSeMOSYS), to assess irrigated-agriculture pathways over 2022–2063. Specifically, it examined how the most irrigated agriculture (MIA) and least irrigated agriculture (LIA) scenarios influence crop production, land use, agricultural water use, electricity generation and CO₂ emissions. The results show that MIA achieves substantially higher irrigated crop production (84.6 Mton) than LIA (40.3 Mton) by 2063, while requiring less agricultural land and water and maintaining more than twice the mean forest area. Agricultural water use reaches 8.91 × 10⁹ m³ under MIA, compared with 14.1 × 10⁹ m³ under LIA. Electricity generation is comparable, reaching 1,143.8 PJ and 1,129.1 PJ, respectively. However, LIA achieves stronger climate mitigation, reducing CO₂ emissions to 61,292 ktCO₂e, compared with 76,261 ktCO₂e under MIA. The findings demonstrate important land-water-food-energy-climate trade-offs. Ghana should combine MIA’s resource-efficiency and productivity advantages with LIA’s stronger emission reductions through water-efficient irrigation, forest conservation, energy-efficient pumping and renewable-powered irrigation.