By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Dasang (U/E), Jan 30, GNA – High prices of chemical fertilizer and loss of soil fertility due to excessive use of inorganic manure continue to pose challenges to sustainable agriculture production for smallholder farmers.
Poor rural smallholder farmers continue to face food and nutritional insecurity due to low yields produced on unfertile lands, coupled with the impact of climate change and environmental variability.
To help address the challenge and contribute to sustainable agriculture production, some rural smallholder farmers in Dasang and Kparaboug, two farming communities in the Nabdam District of the Upper East Region have been trained to produce organic compost to support their farming activities.
The Forum for Natural Regeneration (FONAR), an environmentally focused organisation championing the initiative, seeks to empower farmers with indigenous and cost-effective ways of producing manure that increases yields while maintaining soil fertility.
Mr Sumaila Seidu Saaka, the Executive Director of FONAR, said the initiative was part of activities to supplement the tree planting and natural regeneration exercise, dubbed: “Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR)”, funded by the Awaken Trees Foundation of Austria.
The production of organic compost manure involves the use of local raw materials such as cow dung, poultry manure, ashes, dried grasses, husks, green leaves, topsoil, residue from trees and water that are put in a trench in layers of about five.
The trench is then covered for about three months to decompose after which the manure is ready for application on the farms.
Mr Saaka noted that the compost manure produced from organic matter was safer, healthier and environmentally friendly as compared to the inorganic fertilizer and improves crop yield sustainably.
“In terms of longevity of crops, particularly vegetables, crops that are produced using organic fertilizer are able to be preserved for longer periods and people prefer such organic products to those produced using inorganic fertilizer,” he said.
Apart from the nutrient benefits, organically produced food crops were a sustainable way of dealing with the high cost of chemical fertilizer on the market, which was even scarce.
He noted that organic matter was key to restoring and preserving soil fertility and that the FMNR project was to use trees to improve soil fertility through their residue and provide economic benefits through fruits and firewood to farmers.
Mr Emmanuel Akobta, a Senior Agriculture Officer at the Department of Agriculture, Nabdam District, who took the farmers through the stages of compost production, said the technology was an indigenous one, which had been abandoned for decades but had the potential to increase yield while protecting soil against fertility loss.
“We are advising our farmers to go back to doing the compost because currently, a bag of fertilizer is about GH₵550.00, which is very expensive and our farmers cannot afford but with this method, the materials are available and after two years of use the land becomes sustainably fertile,” he said.
Mr Moses Noreen, the Chairman of the Kparaboug smallholder farmers, expressed gratitude to FONAR and its partners for the enlightenment and said the knowledge acquired would be extended to many farmers in the community to increase agriculture production, help them to stay in business and improve the food security of households.
GNA