By Fatima Anafu-Astanga
Bolgatanga, May 15 , GNA – Mr Ibrahim Jambeidu, the newly elected focal person for the Upper East Region and National Secretary of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), has appealed to the government to ensure that policies and plans on establishment of farmer training centres to boost agriculture in the country were not toyed with.
Mr Jambeidu said though the objectives of setting up the farmer training centres were laudable and would help farmers learn extension techniques, past governments’ interventions particularly on warehousing, training centres and extension services were rather poorly implemented.
Mr Jambeidu made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Bolgatanga.
He said the region was expected to have these centres established in Garu, Navrongo, Fumbiisi and Talensi among others, but were yet to be established.
He said though there were warehouses and demonstration farms dotted in the region, most of them were unused, or broken down, whilst farm produce was left to the mercy of rodents and unfavourable weather.
“Why is so much money pumped into the establishment of these facilities and left in the bush to rot?” he queried.
Mr Jambeidu noted that the yet to be established training centres when put into proper use would be of benefit to farmers in learning extension techniques, storage of farm produce and quality varieties of seeds through agricultural extension officers.
Dr Peter Asungre, a research scientist at the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Institute (CSIR-SARI) in Manga, also in an interview explained that the training centres were laudable if their objective was to train people who want to and were ready to go into agriculture and become self-reliant.
To make this effective, Dr Asungrea advised that steps be taken to identify the beneficiaries, train them at the Farmer training centres and be provided with some start-ups to enable them to get their businesses operational.
On Government interventions such as the “Akoko Nkitinkiti”, Dr Asungre said it was very laudable if the beneficiaries were not just selected based on their political party affiliation but rather come with experience or were ready to learn the business.
Explaining some of the terminologies and differences, Dr Asungre indicated that farmer training centres were more theoretical like a formal school where farmers are taken through a number of theoretical topics.
Relating it to crop production, he cited topics such as seed selection or variety selection through to planting, agronomic practices and yields managements as key topics that could be taught at the training centres.
Dr Asungrea said: “Depending on the period and through availability of resources, the centre may have practical demonstration fields apart from the classroom work for hands-on practical training.
“Where such trainees can at the end of the training be provided certificates that can make them serve as facilitators or trainer of trainees (ToT) for other interested farmers”.
“The centre may also provide some services such as tractors, equipment manufacture, ploughing, which people are trained on how to operate the tractor to provide services.”
He said in the case of demonstration or field days as in the case of SARI it was mainly carried out on the field where a new technology or a new crop variety or a number of them are to be introduced to farmers.
According to him, this was done on a farm managed by a farmer or research field managed by research and farmers are brought at regular intervals for demonstration of agronomic practices such as right planting distances, proper fertilizer and weedicide application, among others where farmers that attend such demonstrations are then expected to apply same on their own farms.
Meanwhile Government in the 2026 budget pledged the establishment of 50 farmer service centres nationwide to improve productivity and reduce postharvest losses.
These centres are expected to be equipped with tractors, harvesters, planters and seed drills to improve access to modern farm machinery.
Most farmer training centres in the Upper East Region are either church-based or owned by non-government organisations (NGO) including the Presbyterian and Catholic Church centres and they used for general training purposes.
GNA
Edited by Caesar Abagali/Benjamin Mensah