By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Kansaworodo (WR), Dec. 13, GNA – Farmers participating in this year’s Western Regional Research-Extension Linkages Committee (RELC) workshop have called on the Ministry of Agriculture to make available demonstration farms in all districts for the teaching and practical knowledge on new innovations in the sector.
They also called for regular training, irrigation facilities, and designated shops within every district for approved and certified seeds as against open market sales which continued to compound low yields.
The farmers also called for a deliberate policy on commodities pricing and the introduction of commodity Price officers into the various markets and sales points to ensure a controlled price that protected farmer Income Security.
These and other concerns arose from the catalogues of farmers and other value chain actors’ constraints table developed in the 2023 farming season during the Annual Research-Extension Farmer Linkage Committee Planning and Review session for 2023 supported by the Accelerating Impact of Climate Research for Africa Project (AICCRA).
It is expected that stakeholders will critically examine the constraints and assist in the development of action plans for the year 2024.
In all, 34 commodities were discussed at the Workshop, including maize, rice, vegetables, cassava, and plantain. Cocoyam, cocoa. Oil palm, coconut, rubber, poultry, sheep, goats, rabbits, pigs and grasscutter.
Pressing issues for redress under the constraints hinged on low or poor yields, lack of preservation and processing as well as irrigation facilities, scarcity of land, lack of ready market and seasonal glut for crops while, animal husbandry recorded issues in the area of low meat yields, high mortality, poor marketing, high cost of production, high price of feed and stunted growth, among others.
Madam Josephine Vida Asiedu, a cocoa farmer from Adum-Banso in the Mpohor District also tasked the government to regulate the fertilizer and chemical industry which was gradually causing the land to lose its fertility.
She was worried that many chemicals in the name of fertilizers and land nourishers were making farming a herculean task since many farmlands had lost their strength and ability to sustain crops over the period.
The Woman Cocoa Farmer said, “When you apply these chemicals, you see the cocoa coming in larger quantities but after one or two years, the story changes.”
Mr. John Kwamina Gyimah, the Western Regional Director of Agriculture, was grateful to CSIR and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture for the annual support that brought stakeholders together to deliberate on sector-specific issues and find research-based solutions to them.
He noted how the engagement had resulted in successful research into cassava cultivation and the introduction of 18 new cassava varieties.
The Regional Director of Agriculture encouraged Extension Officers at the workshop to make it a duty to always visit farmers and solicit their concerns for prompt assistance as the country strived towards food security.
Dr. Faustina Obeng Adomaa, the Gender and Social Inclusion Lead of the AICCRA Programme in Ghana, said AICCRA aims at integrating climate information services into the core mandate of the RELC by bringing on board Ghana Metrological Agency, ESOKO, Farmerline and Syecomp to help strengthen cooperation and knowledge sharing to lessen the effects of climate change on farmers.
She said, “We believe that climate-smart agriculture moves hand in hand with climate information services”.
The AICCRA project, she mentioned, operates in six African countries: Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia to scale the use of validated climate-smart agriculture innovations and climate information services, among farmers.
Dr Adomaa said there were lots of innovations in addition to collaborations with stakeholders to advance research and innovations to enable farmers to adapt to the changing climate.
She added, “As farmers, you need not lose hope, despite the challenges that are coming up around agriculture, I can also assure you that there are a lot of stakeholder activities,
research and innovations that are trying to solve many of the challenges and get these innovations into the hands of farmers”.
Ms. Prospera Anku, Deputy Director, Directorate of Agric Extension Services, noted how extension activities were key to food security and the need for field officers to ensure that extensive consultation and engagement with farmers were paramount for food security.
GNA