The Jirapa Farmers Network (JIFAN) has recommended government’s interventions on agricultural development especially those tailored to help the rural poor farmer to increase production and productivity.

The appreciation came after a zonal level durbars and reflection meetings on the challenges faced by farmers in accessing extension and other government support services by the over 5,000 members of the Network in collaboration with Community Aid for Rural Development (CARD-Ghana ) and with support from ActionAid Ghana.

This was expressed through a communiqué issued and signed by Yakubu Karimu, President of the Network and Abdulai Arimiyao, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, CARD Ghana.

The interventions appreciated by the farmers include the fertilizer subsidy programme, the tractor support services programme, the setting up of the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) to ensure farmers access to secured markets and the establishment of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to help reduce poverty in the savannah agro-ecological zones.

JIFAN however demanded that the Chief Executive of SADA as he assumed responsibility at the Secretariat to increase agricultural production and productivity. It emphasised that the increase in production should be sustainable and diversified covering a number of mix enterprises such as crops, livestock, trees and fish as well as conserving the environment and agro-biodiversity.

The Network also called on the SADA boss to refocus support mechanisms to smallholder irrigation schemes that benefit the smallholder farmer in sustainable basis. It also recommended that the improvement of indigenous seed varieties should be considered and encouraged since they were more adaptable to climatic shocks and could strengthen farmers’ resilience.

The communiqué suggested that the development and promotion of appropriate sustainable agricultural technologies that were more female friendly for both on farm and off farm activities in order to reduce the labour and drudgery of women farmers. JIFAN said it witnessed an inappropriate and weak selection of service providers in the existence in the communities.

The communiqué said JIFAN was one of the well organized groups among other numerous women groups that Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) were currently engaging in various activities and urged SADA to recognise such provision of farm inputs, tractor services and extension delivery.

It called for clear and well-structured criteria of selecting service providers from the locality or within the districts so that many farmers could benefit from their services. SADA, it stated appeared to have ignored existing community structures, Farmer Based Organizations (FBOS) and cooperatives initiatives and urged it to build on them to ensure sustainability and avoid duplications.

The network also appealed to government to decentralise NAFCO operations by constructing and managing warehouses at major food production areas in the Ghana, especially in Jirapa to enable farmers produce to be mop-up as a buffer for sustained food security against any future eventuality arising from crop failure.

It pointed out that the difficulty in accessing veterinary and extension services was due to lack of logistics and effective resourcing of the district directorates of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and, called on government to provide the necessary funding and logistics to make MoFA effective in meeting the needs of smallholder farmers.

The communiqué noted that if government and SADA addressed those issues, smallholder farmers income levels would improve so they could live dignified lives. Farming would also become a more lucrative venture that would attract the youth into agriculture thereby reducing youth unemployment and Ghana would have sustained food security, the communiqué pointed.