Ejura-Sekyidumase (A/R), Feb. 11, GNA – Farmers in Ejura-Sekyedumase in the Ashanti Region have called for adequate protection of their livelihoods in the face of serious challenges with cattle invasion and destruction of farmlands.
The farmers said the situation was making farming activities difficult and a major source of demotivation.
Speaking to the GNA, a physically challenged farmer, Madam Aisha Salifu, wondered how the global food security agenda would be attained with the constant menace of cattle invasion of farmlands of vulnerable farmers.
Madam Aisha said the situation raised a lot of questions, which saddened the hearts of farmers as Ejura is a major food bank known to produce maize, rice, beans and yam.
However, due to the frequent invasion of herdsmen and their cattle from the Northern part of Ghana to the transitional or southern zone in search of pasture, farming activities are under threat.
In this regard, ReDIAL project is working with stakeholders mobilized under a Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue Platform (MSD) to promote participatory governance in the agriculture sector to address some of these challenges.
In Ejura-Sekyedumasi, the MSD has been holding open dialogue with farmers to discuss possible remedies to the constant invasion of farmlands by herdsmen.
The stakeholders engaged were made up of the Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs), Women Farmers and especially Challenged Farmers (PWD’s) farmers, traditional council representatives, District Assembly, Department of Agriculture, NGOs, and Agrochemical dealers, among others.
As part of measures to change the narrative, several possible solutions have been raised.
They include adopting the ranching system, farmers forming an alliance to provide early warnings, tagging cattle’s and registration of cattle owners to differentiate them from invaders, adequately motivating and resourcing the existing task force to ensure proper protection of live and property from the cattle invasion.
Mr Fusheini B. Bucilla, the Crop Officer for the Department of Agriculture in Ejura-Sekyedumase, suggested that the traditional council and Assembly should enact by-laws that regulate the activities of cattle herdsmen and impose huge fines to compensate affected farmers to serve as deterrent to the perpetrators or herdsmen.
He recommended that the night movement of these herdsmen had made the fight against their invasion a herculean task and should be stopped.
Mr Ebenezer Dangeh, the deputy District Coordinating Director, Ejura-Sekyedumasi, supported the idea of farmers alliance and reporting them to the relevant authorities on time as an early warning system.
He explained that the monitoring and early warning would go a long way in strengthening the fight against their menace.
Mr Daniel Kwaku Owusu, the Ejura Project officer for the ReDIAL Project, said there was the need to provide a ranch as a circular economy strategy in housing foreign cattle within the Municipality to serve as a source of income, relief for farmers and general cohesiveness between farmers and herdsmen within the municipality.
Mr Kyei Kwadwo Yamoah, the Project Manager of the REDIAL project, explained that the Research for Development and Innovation Agriculture and Learning (ReDIAL) Action was a project funded by the European Union and being implemented in Ghana by a consortium, consisting of Friends of the Nation (FoN) (the Lead), Tropenbos Ghana, the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (FRNR KNUST) and supported by SAYeTECH Company and SESI Technology
GNA