The Shai Osudoku Dept of Agric on Wednesday held its annual Research Extension Linkage Committee (RELC) meeting with various stakeholders in the food value chain.

The engagement held at the premises of the Shai Osudoku District assembly brought together various stakeholders including farmers, processors, market women, marketers, extension agents, Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs), farm machinery operators, physically challenged farmers, officials of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Greater Accra Regional Dept Of Agric, etc. to formulate programs to run agricultural activities in the district over the next year.

The meeting afforded various stakeholders the opportunity to share their challenges, problems and concerns with the agric dept. researchers and policy makers who'll prioritize the challenges in a bid to address them.

Officials described the meeting as a 'bottom up' approach towards formulating policies in the implementation of agricultural activities.

The meeting as part of its activities on the day also reviewed activities over the past year relative to the 2018 RELC meeting where combating the fall army worm emerged as the biggest success story.

Director of Agric in charge of extension services of the Shai Osudoku Dept. of Agric, Mr. Jonathan Nartey said a lot was done since the last RELC meeting in 2018 to curb the worms and its activities on farms in the district.

He expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the meeting with the optimism that various stakeholders including policy makers, researchers as well as the DOA will play their respective roles to ensure that the challenges articulated by the farmers are addressed.

Mr. Nicholas Addae, Greater Accra Regional extension officer who facilitated Wednesday's meeting called on the Shai Osudoku District assembly to formulate policies to address the myriad of challenges disclosed by the farmers, particularly the effects of the activities of the FAW and other pests and diseases.

He commended the team for curbing most of the challenges discussed in the last meeting and said the outstanding challenges that couldn't be resolved will be tackled alongside the new ones articulated by the farmers.

Mr. Addae identified complaints of termite attacks and destructive weeds as the biggest problems currently facing farmers in the district and promised to forward the issue to the research team in Accra to work around the clock to find a solution to the problem.

Other challenges facing farmers in the district include outbreak of diseases, lack of housing for livestock and destruction of farms by stray livestock, inadequate veterinary clinics and officers, lack of training for livestock farmers, lack of dedicated land for farming, lack of processing and storage facilities, lack of market standardization, indiscriminate use of agro chemicals, among others.