Women farmers call for support to do dry season vegetable farming

Women farmers at Brutu in the Nandom District of the Upper West Region, have called on government, stakeholders and development partners to support them with irrigation dams, to enable them engage in vegetable farming in the dry season.

According to the women, agriculture is their major economic activity. However, the lack of irrigation facilities prevented them from engaging in farming during dry seasons, otherwise they could generate income for their family needs around such periods.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Brutu, Madam Lucy Yaongtibr, a farmer, said they were depending on water from a borehole provided by the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD) and a well to water crops in the lean season.

She said the situation impeded their efforts to cultivate vegetables on large scale and appealed for support for the construction of a dam, to help produce vegetables in large quantities.

Another farmer, Madam Janet Dendele, who said she used money said she spent almost the whole day at the garden, to water her crops because many people depended on the single borehole to water their crops.

In a separate interview with Mr Daniel Banuoku, the Deputy Director for CIKOD North, he said in other jurisdictions like Burkina Faso, the government puts in place the necessary infrastructure including dams as water sources for both vegetable and livestock  production.
He added that, this was why the country could export vegetables like tomatoes to Ghana.

Source: GNA