Farmers embrace new crop varieties
Some farmers in the Upper East Region have expressed interest in new crop varieties being researched for their agronomic attributes and abilities to withstand the climatic conditions in the area.
The Upper East Region is generally known for its single rain season annually, a condition that is speedily worsening day by day and so experts continuously research into improving crops to come out with early maturing and draught resistant ones.
The farmers, who visited the two main trial farms at Bongo and Bonia, were attracted to the greenery and large seeds these improved varieties had produced which raised their confidence, hence their interest.
Cowpea, maize and millet were being tried by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in collaboration with the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Savanna Agriculture Institute (SARI) with sponsorship from the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Africa Rising Programme based in Ibadan as well as the USAID.
Mr Peter Asuungre, an agronomist with SARI who showed the farmers round, said the trials looked at different cropping patterns to see the benefits to be derived from them.
He said the farmers would benefit immensely by the use of the farm residue for feeding livestock which formed part of the intervention and would soon be incorporated by 2014.
Mr Michael Awuni, who addressed the farmers on behalf of the Municipal District Chief Executive, thanked IITA and MoFA for the support and commended the researchers on the project for their hard work and urged the farmers to take the lessons from the fields seriously.
Mr Joseph Akariboga, a farmer, expressed gratitude to MoFA for the intervention and said the cowpea and sorghum had shown vast improvement over the local varieties farmers cultivated in the area because they yielded more with shorter maturing period.
Madam Amina Karim, a farmer, said the improved variety of sorghum had shown a lot of improvement over the traditional varieties.
Source: GNA