Experiences of Tempane farmers in the dry season

More than 1.2 billion people do not have access to sufficient and quality food to meet their basic nutritional needs.

Facts and figures

According to World Vision Ghana in 2019, 57 percent households of Garu and Tempane Districts experienced food shortage, periodically every year which affected the health and Education systems of children in the communities.

Available Statistics also indicated that the Garu-Tempane cluster had 1,400,000 beneficiaries made up of 684,726 children and 715,274 adults of the improved household food security and resilience through the programme by the World Vision programme aimed at improving food for vulnerable children and families.

Farmers in Tempane District over the years had gone through drudgeries in their farming activities due to the lack of dams or water bodies in the area.

As a result, most of them especially the youth migrate to southern Ghana for ‘galamsy’ and other non-existing jobs.

Any solution?

To help address this, World Vision, Garu-Tempane Area Programme, in 2019 constructed a dam at Burankoun community in the Tempane District to help households to undertake all year-round farming.

Mr. Rexford Bugre, the Cluster Manager for the Garu-Tempane Area Programme of World Vision Ghana in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA)said the Christian and Child-focused identified organization promoted more resilient livelihoods for families and communities to sustain their own well-being and better care for their children.

Mr Bugre told the GNA that looking at the difficulty farmers go through to get water into their farmlands, the Area Programme supported the farmers with a solar-powered mechanized pump that can pump 9000 litres of water every day to water their crops constantly to meet the minimum water requirements.

Again, they were supported to fence 64 acres of irrigable land area for dry season vegetable production.

Master Abraham Laar Jemong second-year pupil, at the Tubong Junior High School in a beneficiary community, said the impact of the solar pump donated by World Vision, Garu-Tempane Area Programme was helpful, indicating that for the past two years, he and his siblings had helped their father to water his two-acre onion farm every day after school and during weekends by using the watering cans.

Master Patrick Kombat a 15-year-old Junior High School pupil and his Father Mr Johnson Kombat are benefiting from the intervention, stating that they used to carry water from long distances to water their crops during the dry season, but for the intervention of WVI in creating the dam, they no longer scrambled for water for their crops.

The JHS student recounted his ordeal by saying due to the weight of the water cans, he was always tired after watering and most times it affected his school assignment and home studies.

”Thank you World Vision for lessening my burden, Watering using this pump has become fun and easy. I only need to dip the pump into any available water and start watering the onions in the garden. I am so glad this has come to help me and all other children in this community”, he mentioned.

Ms Fati Duut, a final year JHS pupil at Tubong and her mother Madam Felicia Duut expressed their happiness with the creation of the dam and the Mechanized pump, saying, before this facility, “I used to spend about 2-3 hours each day watering the crops in the garden, but with the pump, I am able to use less than 30 minutes on this same piece of land.

“I will now have more time for my studies at home and hope with the solar pump available and learn to become a professional doctor in future. God bless you World Vision for your timely intervention”.