Nyankpala(NR), July 16, GNA - Authorities of Savanna Agriculture Research Institute (SARI) of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has called on Government to introduce artificial rainfall technology into Northern Ghana to save the area from imminent famine as a result of the prolong drought in the area. They noted that since 2003, a trend of reduced amount of rainfall had been observed in Northern Ghana and this had been reflected in the near-droughty conditions in most parts of the area for the past few years.

Dr Abdulai Salifu, Director of SARI made the call at a press briefing on the drought situation in Northern Ghana at Nyankpala. He said in 2005, the total rainfall recorded was 74 per cent of a 50-year average of 1,016 millimetres; which was regarded as normal, while that of 2006 was 78 per cent.

Dr Salifu said June and July were the key rainy season months for good crop establishment and consequent performance in Northern Ghana but noted however that the rainfall assessment data for June 2007 indicated that there were five rainfall events with only two of them equal to or greater than 10 millimetres.

He noted that it had been two weeks into July and the rainfall situation was no better while at the same time forecast from Meteorological Services and NASA sites for the month indicated no rainfall precipitation for at least up to the third week of the month.

Dr Salifu said the situation as at now was not encouraging and presented a major potential setback for food security and poverty reduction in Northern Ghana.

"There is the dire need to mitigate the current state of affairs with respect to the absence of rain," Dr Salifu stressed and advocated for the introduction of artificial rainfall technology into Northern Ghana to save the situation.

Dr Salifu said Ghana had the ability and capacity to apply artificial rainfall technology to increase rainfall and crop production in Northern Ghana such as countries like China, USA, Canada, Australia and Burkina Faso.

He said it was estimated that cash earnings from agriculture in Burkina Faso increased by 10-15 per cent since it introduced artificial rainfall in 1998.

The additional rainfall created in Burkina Faso, Dr Salifu said had helped to fill reservoirs, allowing irrigated cultivation to continue during the dry season in many areas that were not able to grow one crop a year during the rainy season.

"Production has therefore increased and imports, particularly of cereals have dropped. In some parts of Burkina Faso, fresh tomatoes are now available all year round as a result of the artificially induced rain," Dr Salifu said.

Dr Salifu said the operational area of Burkina Faso induced rain extended well into Northern Ghana (250 km radar range with Ouagadougou as centre).

Dr Salifu said as a result of this, in recent times portions of Upper East and West Regions had been experiencing favourable rainfall regimes and there were speculations that these areas were benefiting from cloud seeding in Burkina Faso.

He said artificial rainfall had proved so successful in Burkina Faso that discussions were on going between West African countries in the Interstate Committee Against Drought in the Sahel (CILSS) about extending cloud seeding to cover all the nine member countries. The nine member countries include Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Senegal. Dr Salifu suggested that Ghana could either adopt the artificial rainfall technology on its own, just like Burkina Faso did or sought membership into CILSS and formulate a programme for the northern part of the country.

He noted that radar systems were in use in Ghana, so some capacity already existed for participation saying that in addition, Weather Modification Incorporated in the USA provided technology transfer training in weather modification including cloud seeding technology which Ghana could benefit from.

Dr Salifu said the adverse impact of drought on the country's economy in terms of drop in agriculture production; industrial output, reduced purchasing power and the concomitant rise in unemployment, particularly of the rural labour force would be considerable.

"Ghana needs to demonstrate its ability to absorb shocks to its agriculture system such as drought. Cloud seeding could be deployed in the north to positively influence rainfall; the lack of which, up country, is a major reason for our current energy crisis," Dr Salifu said.