Develop improved technology to enhance agriculture- Scientists told

Mrs. Agnes Chigabatia, Upper East Deputy Regional Minister, on Thursday underscored the need for agriculture scientists to come out with improved technologies to enhance agriculture production in the country.
She charged the scientists at a regional consultative workshop on “Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP)”, organized by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) in Bolgatanga.
The workshop, which was attended by district directors of agriculture, district planning officers, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) into farming operating in area, Farmer Based Organizations (FBO) and MOFA staff, was to study a draft of the Agriculture Sector Development Policy (ASDP) and solicit inputs for its effective implementation.
Mrs Chigabatia stated that the country was imbued with greater agriculture potentials, which when properly harnessed could help address the problem of food security.
She therefore urged agriculture scientists to fashion out innovative scientific approaches suitable for enhancing agriculture production towards this course.
She noted that there was so much risk in depending on rain–fed agriculture and said farmers in the area could no longer predict when to plant due to the erratic nature of the rains these days, and added that, the phenomenon was disturbing, hence the need for scientists to rethink and come out with pragmatic strategies to address the issue.

Mrs Chigabatia suggested a possible system where agriculture scientists could come out with innovations on rain harvesting techniques to harvest and use rain water even in the dry season as part of ways to address some of the problems associated with the erratic pattern of rains in the three northern regions.
She stressed that government attached importance to the agriculture sector because improvement in the sector could have a positive effect on the economic wellbeing of the people, adding that, it was for this reason that government was committing the necessary resources to that sector to facilitate the implementation of the FASDEP.
She stated that government had awarded the Tono Irrigation Dam in the Kassena-Nankana District on contract for rehabilitation to be followed soon by the rehabilitation of the Vea Irrigation Dam in the Bongo District.
The Irrigation Development Authority, she noted, had designed a number of strategies and is currently implementing a comprehensive technical training programme for farmers' organizations at all irrigation sites aimed at ensuring that farmers used irrigation water judiciously for food production to ensure food security.
She said government had extended a credit package to farmer groups in the region to undertake a 1000 acres rice farming at Gbedembilsi, near the Fumbisi Valley in the Builsa District, and appealed to stakeholders at the workshop to make effective inputs into the policy document, in order to attain the middle income level the country has targeted through the modernization of Agriculture.

It is expected that after the implementation of FASDEP, technologies on agriculture would be improved to increase food production, research findings on agriculture, and promote cash crop investment as well as fish production in the region.
It would also develop a new product development chain for selected commodities, strengthen FBOs and out-growers' schemes concepts, develop rural infrastructure as well as support urban and pre-urban agriculture.
Mr Lamberi Abusah, Deputy Director of MOFA and Team Leader of FASDEP explained that for Ghana to achieve the middle income level by 2015 and the Millennium Goals there was the need for all stakeholders to partner MOFA by supporting its strategies towards achieving these goals.
Professor Saa Dittoh, a resource person exhorted district directors of agriculture and district assemblies to play leading roles in the successful implementation of the project when it started.
The regional consultative workshop on FASDEP is also being held in all the ten regions in the country.