Akufo-Addo’s ‘1-village 1-dam’ will destroy lands – Agric minister

The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru-Limuna has stated that agricultural policies outlined by the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo are only politically feasible.

He argues that the policy ‘one village, one dam’ is a recipe for the destruction of arable lands observing it is also technically impossible but could be passed within the political circles primarily because the party is noted for making such unrealistic promises.

“Technically, ‘one dam one village’ is not possible but politically it could be considered because anyone can say anything in the name of politics and get away with it”, he said.

According to him, he does not in anyway believe in the ideologies of Nana Addo stating that the topography of the villages varies from one location to the other.

Alhaji Limuna observed that the more you dam in the villages, the more you destroy the land and water bodies which will eventually affect main water sources that feed directly into the Akosombo dam further worsening the woes of the country.

“The more you dam, the more you destroy the main ones. If you have to be damming in the over 6,000 villages then trouble awaits you because it could affect your source of energy supply as well”, he added.

He explained that the NPP flagbearer was trying to underscore the importance of irrigated farms in view of climate change and why Ghanaians should no longer depend on rain-fed agriculture.

The Minister revealed that Via, Tono and Poyantanga dams are under serious rehabilitation to feed 221,000 hectors of irrigable lands available for farming and increase it by 500,000 by 2030.

“We want to rehabilitate the old systems to increase the number of irrigated farms in the country but not through his policy which is not feasible”, he emphasized.