FARMERS APPEAL FOR COMBINED HARVESTERS (BACK PAGE, NOV 12, 2010)

RICE farmers in the Fumbisi and Gbedemblisi valley in the Builsa District of the Upper East Region have sent a distress call to the Ministry of Agriculture (MoFA), to assist them with combined harvesters to reap and evacuate their matured rice.

They said as a result of prolonged rains, most of their matured rice remained in soggy fields, a situation which had rendered harvesting very difficult.

The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, added his voice to the call by the farmers when he went on a familiarisation tour of the farmlands cultivated under the government’s block farming and Youth-in-Agriculture Programme in Doninga, Gbedemblisi, Yagaba and Kom farming communities.

In all, 1771.71 acres have been cultivated in the four communities.

The minister said the early release of crawler combine harvesters capable of operating in soggy fields would go a long way to aid harvesting of the produce and save farmers from incurring losses.

Mr Woyongo also identified the lack of storage facilities and processing mills as another challenge that could hamper the government’s commitment to ensuring food security.

Currently the warehouses of the Buffer Stock Company in Tamale and the Irrigation Company of the Upper Region (ICOUR) in Navrongo are both filled with paddy ready for milling and, therefore, do not have the capacity to store additional rice.

The minister appealed to investors to consider investing in rice mills in the region to aid government efforts at ensuring food security.

He also called on the Ghanaian consumer to develop a taste for locally produced rice since such preference would help keep local farmers in business. 

The National Co-ordinator of the Youth in Agriculture Block Farming Programme, Mr Emmanuel Akuna, said the yield this year had been very encouraging and was hopeful that within the next week or two, modern machinery would be made available to ensure the harvesting of the rice.

Concerning storage, he said his outfit was making efforts to rehabilitate the old FASCOM warehouses located at various places in the district to serve as temporary holding places for the rice before they were transported to the Buffer Stock Company in Tamale.