Sissala West gets warehouses to promote dry season farming

Farmers in the Sissala West district of the Upper West Region will no more have worries as to where they will store their farm.

They will also no longer depend on rain-fed agriculture alone because they now equipped with the logistics to enable all-year-round farming.

Civil Society Organization, Solidaridad International, handed over to the Baka Wiiro farmers Association warehouses at Toroyili and Wiiro to enable the farmers to undertake dry season farming and store the yields to sustain employment and food production all year round.

This, Solidaridad International hopes, will enhance food security in the district and region.

Two other warehouses, being constructed at Sakai and Tawsaw in the Sissala East District of the region, are expected to be completed and handed over to the farmers by April this year.

The 750, 000 Ghana Cedis project does not come with only the warehouses, but solar-mechanised borehole, a reservoir and a five-acre fenced area to be used for dry season farming – a gesture the farmers believe would boost their incomes and provide cover for them during the lean season.

The Wiiro Community project is under the four million euro Sustainable Maize Programme, a five-year Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme jointly implemented by Solidaridad West Africa and Masara N’ARZIKI Farmers Association with funding from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The project is intended to help the farmers’ increase their yields as a means to fight poverty and at the same time ensure food security a region noted for the difficulties occasioned by environmental conditions.

The Upper West Region experiences just a single farming season that does not last beyond six months. Subsequent to that most of the farmers are compelled to idle or migrate to the southern belt for greener pastures.

The project seeks to strengthen the farm management skills and market position of 12,000 farmers and introduce more resilient and ecologically balanced cropping systems.

In a brief address before he handed over the facility to the Baka Wiiro farmers association, the Regional Rirector of Solidaridad West Africa, Isaac Gyamfi, said the project was designed to give the people an all-year farming employment capable of yielding more than the lure of migration to the south.

The Project Engineer, Jan Van Saane, who represented the Netherlands government stated that the Dutch government has moved from aid to trade to create opportunities to the less privilege to develop their own potentials to make them self-sufficient.

The acting president of the Baka Wiiro Farmers Association, Cosmos Wibonto, on behalf of his colleague farmers thanked the Dutch government, Masara N’arziki and Solidaridad for the kind gesture.