COMMERCIAL AGRIC TO BE BOOSTED (PAGE 20)

COMMERCIAL Agriculture in five districts of the Northern Region will see expansion in the next four years under the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA).
A total of 360 farmer-based organisations (FBOs) comprising 18,000 farmers, as well as 20 service providing entities, have been targeted to be developed within the four-year period to boost commercial agriculture in the beneficiary districts.
They are the Tamale Metropolis and the Tolon-Kumbungu, Savelugu-Nanton, Karaga and West Mamprusi districts.
The Regional Manager of the Northern Agricultural Intervention Zone, Dr Siegfried Kofi Debrah, made this known during the inauguration of the project offices for the Northern Regional Implementation Consultant (RIC) at Nyankpala in the Tolon-Kumbungu District.
The RIC has the overall responsibility for implementing the commercial development of FBOs to help achieve targets in the commercialisation of agriculture under the MCA.
The RIC is being implemented by the International Centre for Soil Fertility and Agriculture Development (IFDC), with support from the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), following a contract signed between the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) and the IFDC on March 3, 2008.
According to Dr Debrah, who is also the Country Representative of the IFDC, a five-member committee comprising northern implementation consultants from the IFDC and SARI, among others had been formed to make the project successful.
“We are tooled, ready and eager to go; the Central Management Consultants have developed training curriculum and provided hands-on training to our staff, as well as staff from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture,” he stated.
Dr Debrah admitted that “in all my 20 plus years of managing agricultural projects at the international and national levels, I have never been involved in a project that has generated more interest and more expectation than the Ghana Compact”.
The Project Manager of the Commercialisation of Agriculture of the MiDA, Mr Michael Asomani-Adem, stated that the agricultural programme had been allocated $241 million.
He added that the commercialisation of agricultural project would help train farmers to consider farming as a business entity rather than just for subsistence purposes.
Mr Asomani-Adem said the training included modules in productivity to enhance crop yields, adding that a total of 60,000 farmers would be trained.
Mr Asomani-Adem indicated that beneficiary farmers would be provided with post harvest and irrigation infrastructural facilities to enhance their farming activities.
The Regional Minister, Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, in a speech read on his behalf by the Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Mohammed Amin Adam, noted that most of the beneficiary farmers were running out of patience and wondered whether the MCA project was “not a mirage”.
“I understand this apparent delay occurred because for this very project, things had to be done differently to ensure its success and sustainability,” he observed.
Alhaji Idris expressed optimism that the ceremony and the subsequent events would therefore serve to dispel all fears and doubts about the project.
The Programme Leader of Agribusiness of the IFDC, Madam Marjatta Eilitta, expressed the preparedness of her outfit to make available the needed resources to enhance the smooth implementation of the MCA in northern Ghana.
The Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr Abdulai Salifu, said his outfit through the SARI, was in partnership with the IFDC to ensure growth in the areas of crop, soil fertility, irrigation agronomy and post-harvest agriculture.