Farmers in the North cannot afford farming inputs

Mr. Vincent Affram, Assistant Northern Regional Agriculture Officer at the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Division, has observed that one of the major challenges impeding farmers’ quest to increased yield in the region is high cost of inputs.

He said through various farming interventions by the Ministry of Agriculture and other development organisations, most farmers are up to date with new farming technologies, innovation and skills but do not have money to buy the right inputs.

Mr. Affram said this at a Tamale-based radio station’s (Diamond FM) Advocacy Project forum funded by STAR-Ghana in Tamale at the weekend. It was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, SEND-Ghana and the Department of Women, and was on the theme “Tackling bottlenecks to the development of rural agriculture in the Northern Region: improving rural farmers’ access to Agricultural inputs supplies”.

Mr. Affram called for a further subsidy on agro inputs to ensure that farmers are able to buy certified seeds to increase yield.

A careful observation made over the years has shown that most farmers prefer to use seeds from their produce instead of acquiring the certified seeds for cultivation, because they don’t have money to buy the right seeds, he said.

He said the Agric Directorate has in stock about 157 metric tonnes of maize, 48 metric tonnes of soya beans and three tonnes of rice certified seeds -- which farmers are not buying.

Mr. Affram complained about the refusal of some financial institutions to grant farmers loans, saying banks
that grant loans to farmers do so at the same interest rates given to traders. This is not fair.

He said the Directorate in collaboration with the security agencies has set up an effective monitoring system to prevent the smuggling of fertilisers to other neighboring countries.

Mr. Nelson Adanuti Nyadror, Project Manager said although women smallholder farmers are more productive they face many challenges -- key among which are inaccessibility to tractor services and agro inputs.

He explained that the Diamond FM Advocacy Project was sought to increase access to agriculture inputs for farmers, especially women and people with disabilities as well as farmers in the hard-to-reach communities.

“We have started radio discussions and features on the challenges of farmers and their families, to focus the attention of policy-makers on the need to reshape certain policies and transform them into sustainable action that betters the lives of smallholder farmers,” he said.

Credit: GNA