The Upper West Regional Project Manager for E-Agric, Mr. Abu Eliasu Dawono has disclosed that farmers in the region have started using their registered (ID) cards to purchase the Planting for Food and Jobs’ subsidized fertilizer at a low cost.
The Upper West Regional Project Manager said this on Friday June 17, 2022 in an interview with Info Radio in Wa.
Mr. Dawono said over 88 farmers have so far used their cards to buy subsidized fertilizer at a cost of GHS160.00, GHS23.00 off the commercial price of GHS183.00.
He indicated that about 300,000 farmers have been registered across the 11 districts of the Upper West Region.
Mr. Dawono noted that the overall farmer population in the region is about 465,000 implying that some farmers are yet to be registered in the system.
He said every farmer who has registered is entitled to 52 bags of both Sulphate of Ammonia and NPK which can be used for five acres of cultivated land.
He further explained that each registered farmer is limited to 28bags of NPK and 24 bags of Sulphate of Ammonia.
Mr. Dawono however added that farmers who exhaust the 52 bags threshold can obtain additional farmers at the commercial or market price.
Mr. Osman Fuseini Sulley, the Regional Managing Director for E-Agric, stated that the government has initiated the farmer registration exercise as a measure to check the smuggling of fertilizers from the country to the neighboring countries.
He however observed that the high cost of fertilizer has lowered the patronage of the input even though they have large quantities of fertilizer for farmers in the region.
Mr. Haki Adamu, a farmer who was spotted at the E-Agric outfit to register, shortly after registration, bought a bag of the fertilizer at the subsidized price.
He expressed his excitement for getting the fertilizer at GHS160.00 saying “I have got a balance of GHs23.00 for fuel to return home.”
Mr. Adamu therefore encouraged other farmers in the region to register and get access to fertilizer with ease and at low cost.
The government of Ghana last year contracted Broad Spectrum Company, a technology firm, to register all farms within the Savannah ecological zone for the purposes of providing farmer-tailored services and incentives.
The registration began in the last quarter of 2021 and continued into this year.
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