NGOs help flood victims in the North to Farm

Over one hundred communities that were affected by the drought and flood in the three Northern Regions would be receiving assistance from Action Aid Ghana and CARE International to improve their livelihood and security.
The 10-Month Food Security and Rehabilitation Management (FARM) project, is being sponsored by the Department for International Development (DFID) and would finance communities to undertake livestock rearing, rain fed agriculture, dry season gardening, Cereal Storage and micro credit and income generating activities.
It would also prepare and equip communities to manage and support livelihood recovery assets and help them in disaster preparedness skills.
Mr Joseph Degbedzui, Action Aid Ghana Senior Programme Officer for Food Right, Upper East Region said this at a workshop of FARM project in Bolgatanga, organized to share information with stakeholders and solicit suggestions for effective implementation of the Project.
Forty five communities in the Upper East Region would benefit from the project.
Mr Degbedzui explained that, despite the numerous interventions with food aid to help the flood victims, many were still suffering and needed both seeds to sow during the farming season and food to live on until their first harvest.
He said cost of living had gone so high and that it was beyond those who had lost every thing in the flood. In the Upper East Region, the average price of 2.5kg (one measuring bowl) of millet, the staple food, in February 2008 was GH¢1.5 as compared to GH¢70 in the same month last year.
He said majority of the people who would be receiving assistance currently ate once a day. In February, 56 per cent of them had empty granaries as compared to nine per cent who had no food last year.
The Project would start organizing seed and grain fairs at various communities as an innovative way of making them available to farmers because farmers had problems with the procurement of quality seeds from vendors and also lack grains for food.