Dec. 24, GNA, Accra On his home property in the Savannah Region, President-elect John Dramani Mahama spent the last weekend harvesting crops using a combine harvester. The crops include soy beans and yellow maize for the poultry business. The Ghana News Agency received a video clip from the president-elect's office that showed him busy using the combine harvester on his farm.

I have been really busy this past weekend around the savannah region. Because the fires have begun and your crops would be burned by bushfires if you don't get them in time, farmers are very busy. We're harvesting maize and soy beans on this land," he said. According to him, they sent their soy beans and maize straight to Asutuare Farms in the Eastern Region for use in poultry.

"We started with the goats and the small ruminants, and we started with 300 of them," he said, indicating that he was also involved in animal husbandry. At present, they have grown to over 500. We only started a few months ago and currently have 200 more animals, so things are going well. According to the new president, cattle would eventually be added after sheep. He restated that he was involved in the production of both crops and livestock. He claimed that the droughts that struck this year were one of the main issues they had as farmers, particularly with regard to the crops, adding that "after we planted the rain came to a stop."

He claimed that when the crops germinated, they had trouble getting the maize and soy beans to take root since the rain ceased. Fortunately, the farm has some irrigation equipment. We implemented our three sets of irrigation equipment, which helped to rescue a portion of the crop, but we still lost almost 40% of it," he stated. We were only able to save roughly 60%. This year, we would have had more, but regrettably, there were droughts, so our goal is to completely switch to irrigation.

"There is a small river there, and we have drilled five very productive boreholes. Next year, we will use a pivot system to ensure that we have enough water for irrigation, enabling us to grow two crops instead of one each year." The president-elect claimed that although the various pieces of equipment on the farm were operating efficiently, there were issues with after-sales servicing.

As it's harvest time right now, he stated, "We need to standardize the equipment and make sure that anybody selling agricultural machinery in Ghana is able to offer the farmers after sales service because a lot of the dealers sell you the equipment but sometimes you can't get the parts, spare parts once you buy the equipment." According to him, they had to order the spare parts from outside because one of their combined harvesters broke down and they didn't have any in the nation. "Bushfire would have finished this crop by the time the parts arrive if we say we're waiting for them to bring the parts from my side," he stated.

Fortunately, you spotted me riding an excellent combined harvester that belongs to one of our neighbors. We have recruited him to come and assist us so that we can harvest all of the crops before the fires start. According to Mr. Mahama, this is the reason he thinks the country needs farmer service centers with specialist organizations that fix and run the equipment. He claimed that by doing this, the farmer would be able to concentrate on his farming while someone else handled the machine maintenance, saving him from having to deal with it.

It's a good experience, but farming is my life; I love it, and I'm sure that if I didn't go into politics, I'd be a full-time farmer. "Today, my headache is about this combined harvester how to get a part; it should have been somebody's headache and mine should just be to procure my seeds, get my fertilizers, and be able to grow my crops," he said. "Anyway, I'm going to start farming full-time after I retire, you know, after this stint. You must come here onto the property if you wish to see me.

GNA

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