Amrahia (GAR), Nov. 19, GNA - The Livestock Development Project (LDP) has introduced a new financing facility called "Credit-in-kind scheme", to allow smallholder farmers to freely acquire ruminants for rearing. Under the scheme, the beneficiary farmers will, be given a number of sheep and goats to rear for two years and pay back the same quantity of the animals, which will be given to other beneficiaries. Already, the first batch of animals has been conveyed to various quarantine centres in the districts to undergo deworming and vaccination for onward distribution to beneficiaries.

Mr Maxwell Odonkor, a Livestock Specialist at the LDP disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency during a two-day training workshop on Livestock Breed Improvement for Livestock Specialists and Regional Development Officers for Animal Production at Amrahia near Dodowa in the Greater Accra Region. Thirty- five districts in seven selected regions are benefiting from the scheme, which is being financed by a 5.76 million dollar grant from the African Development Bank and supported by the Government of Ghana. Apart from eliminating default and misapplication of the LDP loans associated with smallholder farmers, it would reduce poverty and increase livestock production to cut down on importation of livestock. He said out of the million dollar facility, the local disbursing bank, the Agricultural Development Bank, had disbursed only 1.7 million dollars because of the high default rate, a situation he said was not encouraging, since the facility was meant to reach as many smallholder farmers as possible to raise their income level.

He said: "The scheme is interest free."

Mr Asare Mensah, Acting Director of Animal Production Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture urged members to redouble their efforts to produce more livestock products to meet local demand. He told the participants that the success of the 2010 budget to achieve high domestic production of livestock to meet local demand rested on them and gave the assurance that the Ministry would provide them with all the necessary technical assistance and guidance to enhance their operations. He said some people were of the opinion that "Ghanaian livestock production sector is dead".

Mr Mensah challenged tasked the farmers to revive the sector, stressing: "Now is our time to act." He called on them to uphold the terms of the new scheme to ensure that others also benefited from it. 19 Nov. 09