Dr Samuel Mahama, a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana (MAG), has observed that women participation in agriculture is a step to the radical promotion of socio-economic empowerment of society and encouraged them to take active part in agriculture.
“Women are a very essential part of our lives and they are the caregivers, they are able to maximize resources no matter how small it is, they will optimize it to be able to get the best out of it,” he said.
He made the observation during a farmer’s field day at Community Seed Production (CSP) sites at Kpongu in the Wa Municipal in the the Upper West Region (UWR) on October 21, 2022.
The CSP initiative is aimed to increase access to good quality certified seed by farmers at the community level for cultivation to help reduce the difficulties farmers go through in accessing certified seeds for cultivation as well as to serve as source of income to farmer groups.
It is funded by the MAG, a Canadian budgetary support program, and implemented by the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-SARI) in selected districts in the UWR with target on soybean and maize crops.
Dr Mahama encouraged the women to take active part in agriculture because donor attention on the sector was gradually being influenced by women participation.
He indicated that, through the CSP initiative, farmer groups have been equipped with relevant skills, resources and technical know-how in producing high quality seeds for increased agricultural productivity.
Meanwhile, Dr George Mahama, an Agronomist at the CSIR-SARI, Wa Office observed that the specification for seed certification of 2.5 acres was not helpful to community seed production initiatives.
He, thus, appealed to the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) of the Ministry of Agriculture to consider revising the minimum land size from 2.5 acres to 1 acre for seed production.
This, he believed, would remove the barrier and enhance the concept of the Community seed production, as land availability and acquisition was gradually becoming a problem to most communities.
Madam Sherifa Daud, the leader of the Kanyirin Suma farmer group at Kpongu, thanked the CSIR-SARI for involving and supporting the group in the CSP programme and expressed hope that the programme would be extended to other communities in the area.
She appealed for more improved technologies and opportunities to be shared with them to increase their productivity and ultimately, their income levels for improved livelihoods.
The CSP generally sought to address the problem of limited availability and accessibility of suitable improved crop varieties which is a major constraint to agricultural productivity in northern Ghana.
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