Libga (N/R), Jan. 27, GNA - The Canadian Prime Minister's Special Representative for Africa, Mr Robert Fowler, has urged agricultural extension officers to blend modern agricultural technologies with indigenous practices to maximize production.

He noted that expertise skills were useful but these should not be employed solely to the detriment of traditional agricultural practices. Mr Fowler who is also the Canadian Ambassador to Italy, and Permanent Representative to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was addressing farmers on the Field School Project at Libga in the Savelegu/Nanton District on Monday.

He was in the region to inspect agricultural projects funded by the WFP, FAO and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The Field School Project at Libga is a training centre on modern agricultural technologies for farmers from the five communities in the area.

The project also supports the farmers with credit facilities to buy improved seeds, equipment and construct pens for their livestock. It is sponsored under the FAO Special Programme for Food Security. Mr Fowler said farmers would change and readily accept modern technologies that would enable them to achieve maximum production levels.

He expressed satisfaction with the demonstration farms established by agricultural extension officers at the Libga irrigation dam site to impart to young farmers modern technologies on crop production, fish farming and livestock rearing.

The 120-hectare irrigation farm is cropped with rice, vegetables, onions and okro with each farm family sharing a hectare of the land on which the women cultivate mainly vegetables, which have high demand on the local market.

Mr Fowler urged the farmers to put into practice the modern technologies they had learnt to enhance their income levels. Some of the farmers interviewed said at first, they did not know how to transplant rice but with the assistance of some Chinese volunteers, they could now transplant rice, and double their production levels.

According to them, they used to realize between 20 and25 bags of rice per hectare of land but they had been able to increase the yield to about 50 bags per hectare following the use of manure and the application of the "dabbling and planting on rolls" methods.

They said with the help of the project they could now pen their animals and supplement their feeding, thus improving their health status and enabling them to bear between two and four kids in one pregnancy.

Mr Fowler also visited the Nutrition Centre at Dungu in the Tamale Rural District, where 250 children aged between eight months and three years were undergoing pre-school education.

The children, from four communities, are provided with hot meals twice a day.

The WFP is supporting the centre built by ActionAid Ghana, a British NGO.

Mr Fowler also inspected an FAO sponsored grasscutter project undertaken by 25 women at Gumani in the Tamale Metropolis and the CIDA funded Northern Region Water and Sanitation Project (NORWASP) at Sang in the Yendi District.

Earlier, Mr Fowler had paid a courtesy call on the Northern Region Minister Mr Ernest Debrah at his office.

Mr Debrah appealed to the WFP to extend the rehabilitation of the existing dams in the Tolon/Kumbungu and Savelugu/Nanton Districts to cover other districts in the region to enable the youth to undertake dry season farming.

He noted: "Many of the troubles in this region occur during the dry season when the youth have little or nothing to do." He also appealed to the CIDA to provide more boreholes to the communities to stem the incidence of guinea worm disease in the area.