Ghana farmers urged to pay back loans

An Agricultural Extension Officer, Ms Felicia Kwao, on Thursday appealed to farmers who benefited from financial support from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to endeavour to repay.

She said that would prevent the situation where the extension officers, who nominated them are held responsible for the repayment of the amounts.

Ms Kwao explained that when the farmers pay back the support, it would encourage the Ministry and the Development Partners of the country to increase their support for more farmers to benefit and to increase the size of their farms.

She said this to the Ghana News Agency on the outcome of maize demonstration farms established in her area of operation last season to encourage maize farmers to stick to correct spacing of maize plants and the use of fertilizers and other agro-chemicals to increase their productivity at Oyoko, a suburb of Koforidua.

Ms Kwao said despite the poor rainfall last season, on the average, the demonstration farms were able to produce nine maxi-bags of maize per acre instead of the three maxi-bags per acre, which farmers in the area normally produced.

She said the Ministry provided the farmers with the seeds for planting, a bag of compound fertilizer, a bag of ammonia and some agro-chemicals for the management of the farm all to the tune of GH¢100.

Ms Kwao said five demonstrations farms were established in her area and farmers around each of the farms were invited to participate in the various processes to enable them to learn while participating.

She said though the farmers were happy about the yield, they complained that the line planting was very difficult and suggested that the MOFA trained some youth in line planting so that the farmers could hire their service to plant for them.

Source: GNA