Northern Rural Growth Programme transforms agriculture in Northern Ghana

A dry season maize farmer in Jirapa

AGRICULTURE has over the years been noted as the backbone of Ghana’s economy.

More than 50 per cent of the country’s labour force was estimated to be in the agricultural sector, as indicated by the 2000 Population and Housing Census.

In spite of this, many farmers in Ghana remain poor, especially in Northern Ghana, which boasts of boundless agricultural potentials.

It was to address this problem that the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP), an eight-year agricultural initiative, was formulated.

The programme was launched in 2009 by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to contribute to equitable and sustainable poverty reduction and food security among rural households in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions as well as five other districts in the Brong Ahafo region.
They are Sene, Pru, Tain, Kintampo North and Kintampo South.
The African Development Bank (AfDB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Ghana are co-financing the programme.
After visiting a number of its intervention areas, the Daily Graphic observed that the NRGP had made significant progress towards transforming agriculture in Northern Ghana.

Rehabilitation of feeder roads

A section of the Arigu road

Under its infrastructural component, the NRGP earmarked about 70 feeder roads, totalling over 600km, for rehabilitation as a major intervention to open up heavy production areas to market centres.
So far, over 15 of these roads have been completed and work is still in progress on the remaining.
The completed ones include the Pwalugu-Arigu, Yaga-Gbetouri, Kukuobila-Tamaligu, Tongo-Senti and Tainso-Kogua roads.
It is evident in these communities that life has not been the same since these roads were rehabilitated.
Aside the ease of transportation, it is now possible for the people to transport fresh produce to market centres to avoid any post-harvest losses.
In Arigu, for instance, the regent, Naa John Asabigi said the Pwalugu-Arigu road used to be in a very poor shape and that in the wet season, vehicles could not travel to the village.
“Today, vehicles come here regularly to pick people and also carry agricultural produce to the market. We can now take pregnant women and the sick to the hospital without any difficulty” he said.

 

Grants for agricultural machinery

 

One of the innovative strategies that for farmers in the beneficiary districts.the NRGP has introduced is a subsidy scheme on heavy agricultural equipment
Under the scheme, known as matching grants, the cost of farm equipment, such as tractors, planters, harvesters, threshers, and ploughs, have been subsidised between 40 and 60 per cent to enable the farmers acquire these equipment.
A commercial farmer in Savelugu, Mr Mahama Alhassan, who has benefited from this scheme, said he acquired three irrigation pumps for 76 farmers in Tamaligu to enable them source water from a nearby river for dry season farming.
“With the aid of the pumps, we were able to cultivate 15 acres of butternut squash and several acres of other crops in the dry season,” he stated.

Irrigation for dry season farming

With the acquisition of irrigation pumps, many farmers are now able to source water from nearby rivers to engage in all-year round farming and not wait for the rains.
The 2011 Best Farmer in Jirapa, Nyelle Niyogkuu is one of the farmers who has been assisted by the NRGP to cultivate maize, rice, pepper, groundnuts, butternut squash and okro on large tracts of farmlands close to the Black Volta both in the dry and wet seasons.
He told the Daily Graphic that in 2011, he cultivated 10 acres of maize and harvested 130 bags and it was this achievement that made him excel over other farmers in Jirapa and consequently he was declared the 2011 Best Farmer in Jirapa.

Linking farmers to markets
One bane to agriculture in the country has been the lack of market for the tonnes of food produced by farmers.
The NRGP has therefore taken the initiative to facilitate a link between farmers and production companies that require some of the produce to feed their industries.

Through the linkage, the farmers have come to understand the crop varieties that are exportable and how to produce to meet the standards demanded by the big industries.
For instance, farmers of sorghum and soy beans have been linked to Guinness Ghana, Ghana Nuts Company and Golden Web.
Other farmers have been linked to major produce buyers such as the Savannah Farmers Marketing Company, and the National Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO).
In Tain, the District Director for Agriculture, Mr Francis Ennor said the maize produced by the farmers is aggregated by middle men, who in turn sell the maize to poultry farmers in Dormaa and other places.
Some farmers in Jirapa however complained of low prices being offered by the buyers for which reason they failed to sell large quantities of the maize that they produced through the NRGP’s assistance.

Promoting value-chain approach
The NRGP has successfully introduced the commodity value-chains concept to farmers in its beneficiary areas and the idea is beginning to catch on well.
The value-chains approach ensures that there is some co-ordination among all the stakeholders from the input dealer to the farmer, the middleman (if any), the marketer, the buyer and the consumer and that at each stage, premium is placed on value-addition and market demand for the product.
In many of its intervention areas, the NRGP has facilitated the formation of commodity value-chain committees for various crops.
In Jirapa, for instance, the Chairman of the Maize Value-Chain Committee, Mr David Baloro said the committee is made up of farmers, input dealers, buyers, a rural bank and personnel of MoFA.
He said through the committee, the farmers are supported by the Sonzele Rural Bank to access inputs and tractor services.
“It is a cashless system and so the money is not given directly to the farmers, but it is rather deposited into the account of the input dealers. The system is such that buyers of the produce after harvest also make payments into the accounts of the farmers for the bank to recoup its investments and the remaining being the profit of the farmers,” he explained.
Aside these, the NRGP has also implemented several other interventions such as the introduction of butternut , an export commodity, to farmers in its intervention areas and the adoption of measures to improve crop yields through integrated soil fertility management techniques.

Successes attributed to co-financing
In an interview, the National Co-ordinator of the NRGP, Mr Roy Ayariga said the success of the NRGP was a clear manifestation of the benefits of co-financing.
“One funding agency would not be in the position to sponsor all of these activities and that is why partnership is crucial if we are to make any significant progress in transforming agric and improving the livelihoods of our rural folk,” he noted.
Mr Ayariga said the NRGP was using a multi-faceted approach to address food insecurity in Northern Ghana.
The programme, which still has four years to roll, is premised on commodity value chain development, rural infrastructural development and improved access to financial services by all stakeholders in the production chain.
(Also published in the Daily Graphic, July 17, 2013, p. 23)