Rice farmers at Fumbisi in the Builsa South District of the Upper East Region are appealing to government to support them with farm machines such as combine harvesters and tractors to enable them improve production and also prevent harvest losses.
The farmers are also appealing to government to give them ready market for their harvest to curb the recurrent rice glut losses in the area.
The farmers who made the appeal in an interview with Atinka News on the side-line of the inauguration of the Commercial Farmers Association in Builsa South, said they anticipate improved yield this year following the fertilizer and seed support received from government through the Savannah Zone Agriculture Productivity Improvement Project (SAPIP) under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA).
They said the yield and their effort would however go to waste if the needed machines for early harvest of the rice and ready markets for the produce are not made available to them.
Richard Akoka, one of the rice farmers said, “Government has supported us with fertilizer and seed, we have worked well and are now appealing for help to able to harvest. We need combine harvesters. Even if it will be on credit bases, so that we pay back after sales or else if we get good yields and we are not able to harvest and it dries on the field, the buyers will not buy.”
Mr. Akoka emphasized that “Our main challenge is the lack of combine harvesters, because if we are able to do all this work, and at the end we don’t harvest, it means our suffering will be in vain.”
Responding to the appeal by the farmers in a separate interview, Mr. Wilson Doku, a Value Chain and Agribusiness Specialist working with the SAPIP, said “As part of the project objective, we are setting up mechanization service centres, right from land development to processing.”
He said the Centres would be driven by the private sector, “We will advertise it for the private sectors to apply. Even though it will be subsidized, we will give you a period of time to pay”, he told the farmers.
Mr. Doku said procurement processes had begun, and contracts were awarded for work to start, “We are very hopeful that Builsa South will be one of the Districts that will benefit, we only need a private sector person to lead that process”, he added.
He said his outfit would ensure that the private individual would be stationed in the District for farmers to benefit from the equipment, “Hopefully before the end of the year, all the implements will come in. Harvesting has been one of the biggest challenges.”
