Use technology to improve yield – Farmers advised
Professor Osei-Agyeman Yeboah, the Project Coordinator of North Carolina Agriculture and Technical University, has called on farmers to integrate innovations and technology into farming to achieve food availability, access, stability, and security in Ghana.
Professor Yeboah gave the advice at a community engagement at Gizaa in the Tolon District of the Northern Region on a project to reach communities with the best technologies to increase food security and nutrition in the country.
The project was initiated by the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Centre of Excellence for Global Food Security and Defence.
It is being implemented in collaboration with the 1890 Land Grant Universities such as University of Maryland East Shore and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University.
The Northern and Upper East regions are the beneficiaries, supported by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR – SARI).
Professor Yeboah urged the farmers to adopt modern technology such as quality chemical fertiliser, pesticides, herbicides, and machinery to increase food production and boost soil nutrients.
He said innovation was a central driving force to achieving a world free from hunger and malnutrition and called on agricultural innovation systems to take into account strong gender perspectives to make knowledge and technology available to female farmers.
Dr Issah Sugri, a Senior Research Scientist at CSIR–SARI, said the project was to implement a series of integrated interventions to propel sustainable and resilient crop-livestock productivity in the two regions.
It is also to improve nutrition, value chain enhancement and market accessibility for farmers in the northern sector.
So far, a series of trainings on food harvesting, silage preparation, good livestock husbandry practices, crop residue management, and compost preparation had been conducted at the farm level to create awareness on integrated soil fertility management strategies, compost preparation, farm residue recycling, intercropping and improved varieties, Dr Sugri said.
Over the last two years, the project had highlighted the benefits of the maize-cowpea intercropping system on grain yield and participatory evaluation carried out to show the right use of fertilizer to achieve higher yields.
