NORTHERN REGION FARMERS APPEAL FOR MORE SUPPORT

(Daily Graphic, Jan 18, 2012, page 23)

SMALLHOLDER farmers in the Northern Region have appealed to the government to extend more support to them to enable them increase food production and ensure food security in the country.

They argued that in spite of the introduction of some programmes and projects to support the agricultural sector, they were still unable to utilise fully these initiatives due to a number of setbacks.

Key among these drawbacks, they mentioned, are the difficulties they face in accessing the services of agric extension officers, the late delivery of agric inputs, the lack of agric machinery, poor irrigation facilities and the lack of drought and flood resistant seeds.

The farmers made their concerns known at the end of their annual regional farmers’ network meeting which took place in Tamale organised collaboratively by UrbANET, ActionAid and Grameen Ghana.

The participants included members of the Northern Region Vegetable Farmers Union, Nanumba North Women Farmers, Nanumba South Farmers Network and Northern Region Vegetable Farmers Union.

They said many farmers were not aware of the initiatives introduced by the government to improve the agricultural sector, such as the block farm project, fertilizer subsidy and the establishment of mechanization centres.

They therefore recommended the training of more agricultural extension offices and community extension volunteers to reach out to smallholder farmers.

They also called for the institutionalisation of quarterly appraisal forums between farmers and agricultural officers to find out the status of the implementation of agric support projects and to find solutions to emerging challenges.

On access to finance, the farmers entreated the government to establish more agric credit facilities with favourable conditions such as low interest rates, so as to enhance access to these credits by low income farmers.

They also called for such incentives to be extended to the provision of agricultural machinery so that smallholder farmers could also have access to tractors and combine harvesters, among others.

The farmers lamented about the effects of droughts and floods on their activities, saying that some of their crops failed to yield as expected due to these natural phenomena.

They therefore urged government to make available to them drought resistant and high yielding varieties of crops.

The farmers did not mince words in complaining about the negative effects of the activities of Fulani herdsmen on their farming activities.

They said apart from allowing their animals to destroy farmlands, some of the herdsmen also set fire to bushes during the dry season, thereby causing damage to farms and plantations.

They said there was the urgent need for the various assemblies to institute bye-laws to regulate the activities of the herdsmen.