SADA to Mainstream Youth and Women Farmers into its Plan

Bolgatanga - The Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), has indicated its readiness to mainstream youth and women farmers’ groups into its Master and Medium Term Development Plans.

The Director of SADA in charge of the Integrated Development Programmes, Dr. Emmanuel Abeere-inga, stated this when Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone led by the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) submitted collated inputs and development priorities of youth and women farmers’ groups after organizing five regional level consultative forums to the Authority’s office in Tamale.

The Executive Director of NORPRA, Mr Bismark Adongo Ayorogo who made a presentation on the collated inputs and priorities of the farmers’ groups touched on the need for SADA to facilitate the setting up of “One Stop Shop Farmers Resource Centres” in each SADA region, establish new Agro-processing industries and revamp defunct ones such as the Rice Mill, Meat and tomato factories in the Upper East Region, construct irrigation dams and dug outs in every farming community with particular attention to the construction of the long awaited Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam in the Upper East and Juale in the Northern Region, set up Pro-agricultural Financial Institutions to provide loans at low interest rates to farmers, embark on shea plantation and promote aquaculture.

The CSOs further stated that a strategy in the SADA plan to control bushfires, and activities of Fulani herdsmen and respond appropriately to the growing threats of climate change would significantly contribute to a successful implementation of the SADA Agricultural-led Transformational Agenda of the northern savannah areas of Ghana in particular and sustainable agriculture in the entire country.

Mr Adongo said guinea fowl production was still relevant and key to poverty reduction in the northern savannah areas, and urged SADA not to shy away from it because of the challenges it faced before and re-strategize to implement the guinea fowl project.

The presentation on the farmers’ inputs ended with highlights on policy briefs and position papers developed out of the consultative forums.

The Director for the Integrated Development Programmes at SADA commended the CSOs for a good job done and assured the CSOs of mainstreaming the collated inputs into SADA plans.

By Samuel Akapule, Bolgatanga