By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Bolgatanga, May 3, GNA – The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) has called for strategic investment in land development and irrigation agriculture as sustainable measures to the frequent economic crisis and food security challenges the country is experiencing.
The Association said lack of proper investment in key fundamentals of the economy such as agriculture had been the major cause of Ghana’s economic woes, plunging the country into severe debts frequently and always requiring external financial assistance.
It said, the country was blessed with agriculture potential including fertile lands and water bodies that could be developed into irrigation facilities to support all year-round sustainable agriculture production.
Dr Charles Kwowe Nyaaba, the Executive Director, Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) who made the observations through the Ghana News Agency, underscored the urgent need for strategic investment in agriculture to grow the economy sustainably and address the emerging climate change issue.
“The country has been to the IMF 16 times, but we have seen nothing, we think that for us to be able to reverse that trend, now is the time to do strategic investment in agriculture and we will prioritise irrigation and land development.”
The Executive Director noted that many countries globally such as Israel, Japan, China, and Egypt among others relied on water bodies to create irrigation facilities to increase agriculture productivity to grow their economy and Ghana must learn such from examples.
“Israel was a rocky and desert land, which did not have enough water because rain in Israel is 23 inches per annum while Ghana is between 30 to 80 inches per annum.
“So, Israel relied on the Mediterranean Sea, which is salty, desalted it and created smaller dams all over and through drip irrigation they are producing all kinds of vegetables and today Israel is one of the leading suppliers of all kinds of vegetables.
“Our own African country, Egypt, did the same using the Nile River to create a lot of irrigation facilities and currently Egypt is the leading supplier of dry onions, cotton and several other commodities,” he said.
In the case of Ghana, Dr Nyaaba noted that the country already had water bodies that water flowed throughout the year and did not need much struggle to establish irrigation facilities to support farmers to increase production.
Dr Nyaaba said apart from the challenge of climate change posing a threat to food production, the high cost of production had reduced food produced in the country.
He said investing and providing alternative livelihoods through dry season agriculture would not only increase the volumes of food produced in the country and help stabilise the economy but would help address north-south migration of youth to seek for non-existing jobs.
“So, our appeal is that when we get clearance from IMF, whatever credits, or loans we take should go into irrigation including drip and solar pump irrigation systems that we do not have to rely so much on fossil fuel.
GNA