By Abebe Dawuni
Yendi (NR) April 4,GNA – Mr. Adam Muniru, Vice Chairman of Multi-Stakeholders Dialogue (MSD) has called on the government to establish an agricultural mechanization service centre for the Yendi Municipality to help farmers in their annual farming.
He said the private tractor owners determined the prices for ploughing for farmers at high cost.
He said they paid for tractor owners GHS200.00 for their services per acre .
Mr. Adam made the appeal at Yendi during Multi-Stakeholders Dialogue meeting organized by Tropenbos Ghana, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) implementing Research for Development and Innovation Agriculture and Learning (ReDIAL) project funded by European Union (EU) for some famers of Yendi.
He said most Tractor owners cheated farmers by using their foot steps instead of the normal and standard measurements of 63 meters left and 63 meters right with the tape measure totaling up to 4000 meters square of the farm field of acres.
He said the Ministry of Agriculture had been left out of the whole cycle of handling agricultural farming equipment and called on farmers to form Associations to determine the prices of their produce with Board members.
He said in the past, the Farmers Cooperatives which were formed were no more working.
Mr. Adam said the Yendi Municipal Directorate of Ministry of Agriculture had only nine Extension Agents instead of 39.
He said until agriculture mechanization service centres were established in the area, farmers would find it difficult to expand their farms to produce more food .
Mr. Adam said the other challenges included the standardization of pricing of their cereals and grains (farm produce) which they appealed to the government to come out with electronic weighing policy for the farmers so that the prices could be determined after weighing instead of using bowls to measure the cereals and grains.
He also appealed to the government to get the prices for Soya-beans and Shea nuts just like cocoa was priced.
Alhaji Abubakari Mohammed the Yendi Municipal Director of Agriculture called for the establishment of demonstration centres to train farmers on the use of the agrochemicals.
He said the misuse of the agrochemicals come from input distributors and advised the farmers to always buy from certified distributors from Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Division (PPPSD) of Ministry of Agriculture instead of buying from the open market.
He reminded them that some of the agrochemicals included Glyphosate, Gramazon, Pre-Emergency, Post-Emergency and selectives.
He said there were 24 input certificated dealers in the municipality with warehouse/storage facilities at Zang, Adibo, Bunbon among others with also mud silo structures for storage.
Mr. Alex Aboagye Bampoh the Project Officer of Tropenbos Ghana said the Multi-Stakeholders Dialogue platform was one of the components of the E.U funded ReDIAL project.
Mr. Aboagye said MSD platform was established in 2021 to discuss and find solutions to pressing agriculture issues in the Yendi Municipality.
He said the zones benefiting from the project included Yendi, Ejura, Sefwi, Wiawso, Donkorkrom and Techiman.
GNA