Africare undertakes strategic baseline study for agricultural productivity
A strategic Baseline Report Validation Workshop for agricultural stakeholders has taken place at Nsuta, with a call on government and the private sector to redouble their efforts to make the sector more productive and businesslike.
The workshop, which attracted participants from Hohoe, Jasikan and Kadjebi districts in the Volta Region comprised extension officers of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and Christian Action Network, a Hohoe-based development oriented non-governmental organisation (NGO).
The others included agro-input dealers, mechanisation service providers, financial institutions and other NGOs.
It was under the auspices of the Africare Ghana and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, two agro-based NGOs, aimed at integrated soil fertility management practices to reduce land degradation and increase income.
The project is targeting about 30,000 farmers over a three-year period and aims to institutionalise the transfer of integrated soil fertility management technologies between small-holder farming communities in the Volta Region through participatory technology transfer initiatives.
The stakeholders suggested the need for the prioritisation of credit and financial services whilst farmer education and sensitisation should be perked up.
They said in view of the yawning ratio gap between farmers and agricultural extension officers, farmers are ready to pay for extension; training and mechanisation services to get the needed leverage to delve into agriculture as a business entity.
They proposed improved conservation, cost effective crop production and integrated soil fertility management to boost production and sustainable food security.
Mr Francis Dompae, Project Co-ordinator told the Ghana News Agency that the workshop aimed at establishing a baseline for the sound performance, monitoring and evaluation to track progress of stakeholders.
It would also determine the impact and effectiveness of the study and create benchmarks for progress to be measured over the project lifespan.
Mr Dompae said 300 respondents from the three project areas were sampled including crop production practices, sources of planting material, cropping systems, land availability and farm size, output, credit support and impact, agro-input access and use, environmental and soil health.
Source: GNA