VICE-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
VICE-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government under President Akufo-Addo has demonstrated its commitment towards addressing constraints in the agricultural sector.
According to him, one of the major constraints to agricultural productivity is inadequate infrastructure in the areas of irrigation facilities, warehouses for storage, amongst others.
Speaking at the 8th Town Hall Meeting and Results Fair in Accra on Tuesday evening, Dr. Bawumia indicated that the government had put in place the various agriculture infrastructures over the past three and half years to support the Planting for Food and Jobs programme.
He disclosed that a total of 439 dam/dugouts had been constructed with 375 out of them completed and 64 still ongoing…
On the warehouse/silos, he noted that a total of 102 were being undertaken with 28 of them completed and 74 still ongoing, adding that the government embarked on the construction of 80 warehouses, under the One District One Warehouse Initiative each, with a capacity of 1,000 MT throughout the country.
He continued that this was as part of measures to ensure food security, reduce post-harvest losses, guarantee farmer incomes and improve marketing.
“These warehouses are equipped with dryers, laboratories and solar power which are directly under the One District One Warehouse Initiative. When completed, the programme will provide storage capacity of 80,000 MT across the country,” he disclosed.
The Vice-President mentioned some of the beneficiary communities as Ejura, Atebubu, Tamale, Sandema, Bawku, Pusiga, Yendi, Twifo Praso, Dunkwa, Diaso, Sefwi Bekwai, Essam, Juaboso, amongst others.
Greenhouse
According to him, the government established three Greenhouse Training Centres with commercial components, each on a five-hectare piece of land, at Dawhenya, Akumadan, and Bawjiase.
“At the end of December 2019, the three centres had, together, trained 296 graduates in greenhouse vegetable production. In addition, a total of 180 graduates have been targeted for training in 2020,” he stated and added that 100 greenhouses had been built so far.
“The NPP government is implementing a holistic plan to provide farmers and household’s access to water for all-year-round farming,” he said and continued that under the plan, there are three components of infrastructure.
Small Earth Dams (1 Village 1 Dam)
On the small earth dams, Dr. Bawumia acknowledged that they are nowhere near the Akosombo dam in size and reach, but they are the practical response to the needs of the people and their realities on the ground.
“The documentary that was shown earlier shows the impact of these small earth dams and the appreciation of the beneficiaries in all constituencies in the five northern regions where they have been completed, including Bole.
“To date construction has started on 435 small-earth dams, and 372 have been completed, while 63 are ongoing. Each dam is expected to provide water for up to five hectares of land.
“The completion of this project will deliver the largest stock of small earth dams ever constructed in the country. Each Small Earth Dam contains more than 30,000 cubic metres of water when full, enough to survive the greater part of the average dry season in any year,” he said.
Opposition on dams
“When you hear the opposition saying these dams cannot be used for irrigation, you wonder what they mean by that. Across the world and many regions in Ghana farmers do irrigation using different systems,” he said.
For instance, Bawumia stated that the people in the Anloga-Keta area have always produced shallots in the dry season using tube-wells as their source of water for irrigation and added that farmers in the Bono East Region, and in all the northern regions have always produced vegetables in the dry season using water from small dugouts they create in river beds to extract water.
“Again, a lot of people today are pumping water from boreholes into raised plastic storage tanks for use for irrigation in the dry season. The amount of irrigable land the 1V1D policy provides is over 12,000 hectares which is almost equal to the total public irrigable land currently available in Ghana,” he added.
By Ernest Kofi Adu