Greetings from Ghana

Welcome to a hot and sticky Ghana. Its pushing 90 degrees here and we are about to go into 8 days of civil society and official UNCTAD talks, seminars and workshops. The TV news here is full of a new report from a local thinktank which is today reporting that Ghanaians will not be immune to the food price crisis that has hit countries such as Cameroon and Egypt as well as further afield in Thailand and Philipines. I queued up behind a man in a shop who was buying 2 large sacks of rice. Ghana used to produce a lot of its own rice but these 2 sacks had been imported from Thailand. After less than 24 hours in the country, it is clear that Ghanaians are already struggling with the question of whether self-sufficiency in food is attainable or whether reliance on imports is inevitable.