The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GHPA), Michael Luguje, has provided fourteen mechanized boreholes for vegetable farmers in four communities within the Kasena-Nankana area.

The mechanized boreholes, which have been sunk in communities including Manyoro, Namolo, Pungu and Paga, have become a major source of water that supports over sixty farmers, majority of whom are the youth, to cultivate pepper, tomatoes, garden eggs and other vegetables.

Mr. Luguje provided the boreholes to enable farmers in the communities engage in dry season farming as a source of livelihood and to minimize the movement of the youth from home to seek greener pastures in bigger cities in the Southern parts of the country.

Through the kindness of Mr. Luguje, several manual boreholes in the communities that have been broken down have also been repaired and a lot more installed to provide drinking water for the people.

At one of such repaired manual boreholes in Pungu-Telania, school children gathered around jubilating after the damage in a borehole close to their school was fixed and water pouring out into their palms.

Mechanized boreholes save farmers from abandoning farms, increases yield.

Ayiakwo Waliya, a farmer who owns a pepper farm in Manyoro, one of the beneficiary communities, recounting how it was a challenge to get water to irrigate their crops whenever the only Dam in the area gets dry, said the mechanized boreholes have come to save them from abandoning their farms.

He said with the support, farmers in the area including himself have been able to manage and extend the lifespan of their farms which would have otherwise been abandoned, adding that, it has also prevented the youth from moving to the Southern part of the country to seek non-existent jobs.

He continued that the irrigation system has increased yield, enabling them generate income to take care of the needs of their families and to save up for farming next season.

With a mouth full of praises and gratitude to Mr. Luguje, he made an appealed for the extension of the mechanized boreholes to other communities so as to benefit other farmers who face challenges in access water for their crops.

“Farmers in the area including myself are now able to keep our farms to this time and for longer periods, unlike how we usually would dump our farms and travel down south in search of jobs that don’t even exist when the water in the dam gets used up”.

“Now, we are able to grow more and harvest more for sale to take good care of our families and children in school. The market prices for our farm produce are currently not good but we are better off than before,” he said in Kasem.

A tomato farmer, Nonjera Agunia, said the mechanized boreholes have made farming attractive and has encouraged a lot of the youth go into vegetable production. He said getting water to irrigate the crops was always of great worry for them, but with the provision of the boreholes, they no longer feel the impact when the dams run dry.

He thanked Mr. Luguje for identifying their major challenge and selflessly reaching out to them. He however appealed to him and other benevolent individuals to support rural farmers since they contribute enormously to ensure food security in the country.

Assemblymen back calls for more mechanized for farmers

Meanwhile, the Assemblymen for two of the areas which have benefited from Mr. Luguje’s boreholes have urged government to take advantage of the numerous benefits of artificially irrigation to grow Ghana’s agricultural sector.

Pastor Alan Kwesi Nazantera, the Pungu Central Assemblyman, says government should provide mechanized boreholes, especially for areas where there are no dams, to support farmers create jobs for themselves through farming to generally overturn the fortunes that abound in agriculture.

He said agriculture remains the back born of the country’s economy and the needed attention must be given to it. He expressed his appreciation to Mr. Michael Luguje for repairing and providing the boreholes in his jurisdiction and asked for more to be installed for farmers in the area.

He also thanked Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Joseph Kofi Adda, for his contribution to the development of Navrongo, asking him to extend the warmth appreciation of his people to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo for appointing Mr. Michael Luguje, who he described as” a man with a kind heart”.

For his part, the Assemblyman for Manyoro, Kanwi Kingsley Gunona, said he is happy that the mechanized boreholes would eliminate the suffering his people go through to irrigate their crops in the dry when water for farming is scarce commodity.

He also added his voice to appeal for more boreholes to be sank for farmers in all the suburbs.

More mechanized boreholes to be added

In response, the coordinator of the project, Solomon Navanse, has hinted that the kind gesture of the GHPA CEO would be extended to other parts of Kasena-Nankana in the coming months.

He disclosed in an interview with Journalists, after taking them to some of the beneficiary farms and communities, that areas such as Kologo, Bui, Chiana and Naaga would benefit in their next phase of the project.

He said the dream of Mr. Luguje, who himself has suffered the impact of the lack of access to drinking water growing up in the Northern part of the country, is to see every community have unlimited access to water and he is working hard towards that.

Mr. Navanse urged the farmers who are fortunate to have the mechanized boreholes in their locations to make good use of them to improve their lives.

While urging them to properly handle and take great care of the boreholes, he assured that regular maintenance would be carried out to ensure their longevity.

“You must take good care of the boreholes and make good use of them so that Mr. Michael Luguje will know that the money he used to provide the mechanized boreholes is not in vain. This will encourage him to do more for all farmers to benefit,” He said.