The European Eunion-Ghana Agriculture Programme (EU-GAP) has handed over a solar-powered irrigation facility to some women farmers at the Dissah community in the North Gonja District, Savannah Region.
The facility is to help boost their economic fortunes through dry season vegetable farming.
Speaking at a brief ceremony at Dissah to hand-over the facility, the Team Leader of the Private Sector Component of MOAP-NW, Dr. Andrew Harberd, said the facility has the potential to generate income for the women and improve nutrition at the community.
“There is a need to channel required resources and infrastructure to women engaged in the sector to facilitate improvements in agricultural production and productivity”, he said.
Dr. Harberd said the project will also help contribute to the government's agricultural development agenda.
He said the women beneficiaries will also receive good agricultural practices and water management training.
He said the training is expected to result in regular production of high-quality vegetables for consumption and for the market to improve their nutrition and income status.
Alhaji Seidu Sulemana, the Savannah Regional Director of the Department of Agriculture, said the intervention was in line with the government's agricultural sector modernisation agenda through the One-Village-One-Dam initiative.
He said his outfit would support the MOAP-NW to train the women on Good Agronomic Practices to enable them produce good quality vegetables for the market, especially in the dry season when vegetables became scarce.
Mr Abdul-Salaam Alhassan, the Community Mobiliser and Vegetable Expert at the MOAP-NW, said the land fertility had been assessed to be fertile enough for vegetable production before the facility was constructed.
“Currently we have not provided any training but as the community members are so enthused and know the benefit of it they have started producing vegetables.
Our main aim is to train them on how to produce high-value vegetables like cabbage, tomatoes and okra to supply to bigger markets”, Mr Alhassan explained.
Some of the women, who spoke to the Info Radio, expressed gratitude to the benefactors and said they had begun reaping its benefits through the production and sale of the vegetables.
The project was implemented by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) under the Market Oriented Agriculture Programme in North West Ghana (MOAP-NW), a component of the European Union-Ghana Agricultural Programme (EU-GAP).
The Jonny Royals Construction Engineering Company Limited constructed the €23,000.00 worth facility financed by the EU to contribute to Ghana’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on ending poverty and hunger.
Comments