One Village One Dam cannot even sustain backyard farming – Peasant farmers
Executive Director of the Peasant Farmers Association, Charles Nyaaba, has stated that the government’s flagship One village One dam program is not serving its intended purpose.
Read full articleAccording to him, the dams are not even able to sustain as small as backyard farms.
Speaking at a GIZ-IMANI reform dialogue on August 24, 2022, he stated that the main challenge that farmers face is irrigation.
“Our problem has to do with irrigation. Nobody is talking about that. How will an IMF program address the issue of farmers not getting water? When you go to some of the areas there are people who are willing to invest but they won’t do it because this year many farmers abandoned their farms."
“We did a program 1 village 1 dam, and when you go there and those dams cannot even be used for backyard farming,” he said.
Nyaaba who bemoaned the lack of government support for the sector asked that the enabling environment is created to allow investments for the sector’s development.
He said, “I have investors who are willing to invest in the agriculture sector without any support from the government, but because of policies, cultural norms, and traditional rules those people are not able to do it.”
Charles Nyaaba concluded by stating that Ghana has the potential to produce most of the goods it imports if the right environment is created.
“I organized my groups to approach the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to take some of the government-subsidized tractors that came in. One is GH¢257,000. Many farmers are not able to afford it. We were willing to pay half but the Ministry said it was not ready. How will the IMF program make it possible for farmers to get access to credit to able to expand their activities?” he questioned.
“We have more potential to produce tomatoes. We used to do it. The reason we were able to do it is that we were promised that the Northern Star tomato factory was being revamped in 2008. At the end of the day, the farmers were not able to consume, farmers had to commit suicide. We have to create an enabling environment for investors to invest,” he stressed.
SSD/FNOQ
