By Naa Shormei Odonkor
Koforidua, May 24, GNA – Ms Tharzia N. Akwetey, the New Juaben South Municipal Director, Department of Agriculture, Eastern Region, has encouraged farmers to embrace Climate-Smart Agriculture to ensure food security.
Climate-Smart Agriculture is an integrated approach to managing any type of farming to address the challenges of food security and climate change.
Ms Akwetey told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on the 2024 vision of the municipality and achievements in the first quarter of the year that the Department was concerned with climate change due to the current weather conditions and its impact on agriculture,
The effects of climate change including drought, heat, excessive rain causing flooding, and new pests and diseases negatively affect farming hence resulting in food insecurity.
Therefore, the Department was promoting Climate-Smart Agriculture, which focused on innovative urban agricultural practices including bottle drip irrigation, storing rainwater in reservoirs and the use of extracts from Neem leaves and seeds to treat diseases, deter pests and act as a mosquito repellant, she said.
“Bottle drip irrigation” involved the creation of a tiny hole on the lid of an empty bottle, tying it to a stick as support and filling it with water to directly irrigate plants,” Ms. Akwetey explained.
“The water in the bottle can irrigate the crop for a very long-time preventing wastage. The farmer can travel for some time without thinking of watering the farm in the dry season with this method of irrigation.”
She noted that Climate-Smart Agriculture made farming fun, easy and less stressful through simple but effective innovative methods, and encouraged farmers to adopt it, while urging the youth to embrace agribusiness.
In respect to the Department’s achievements, she said in partnership with the Minerals Commission, it distributed 9,732 palm seedlings to farmers in the first quarter of 2024.
This translated to more than 90 per cent of the 10,000 oil palm seedlings expected to be distributed for the year to support the Planting for Export and Rural Development programme.
Ms Akwetey said about 300 five-week-old hybrid birds, called the Saso birds, were disbursed to poultry farmers to improve local breeds, adding that new birds were being bred for another disbursement.
“Poultry farmers testified that the birds were doing very well. Some have requested more so we are breeding new sets to be distributed. The hybrids are strong, and their meat is hardy unlike the foreign broilers.”
The Department also harvested some bags of spring onions it cultivated at its backyard purposely for training and demonstration.
Despite the achievements, Ms. Akwetey said financial challenges made it difficult for the Department to perform duties as required of it, adding: “We are also understaffed. Officers are overburdened with a lot of duties.”
She appealed for government’s support in terms of finances and posting of more staff to replace the retired ones and help renovate the staff quarters and bungalow.
GNA