Perishable farm produce go waste in Pusiga District

Vegetables farms in the Pusiga District of the Upper East Region are perishing as roads linking the farms to market centres are washed away by the week-long torrential rains and the spillage of the Bagre and Kompienga Dams in Burkina Faso.

Several communities in the area have been cut off from the district capital and other districts in the Bawku enclave due to poor road network making it difficult for farmers to access their farms and transport their produce to the market centres.

The downpour caused the White Volta and its tributaries to overflow their banks, thereby washing away roads and making it difficult for farmers who have been able to harvest their vegetables, to reach the markets.

Some of the vegetables include; tomatoes, pepper, onion, garden eggs, cabbage, cucumber and okra among others.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Mahamudu Iddi, the Pusiga District Director of the Department of Agriculture, noted that vegetable farmers were most affected in the area as they could not transport their perishable goods to the market centres at the district capital in Pusiga, Bawku and Bolgatanga to sell.

He said several crops, mostly maize, millet and sorghum along the tributaries of the White Volta were destroyed as some of the farms were washed away while others were water logged.

Mr Iddi said the area was already a water-locked prone area coupled with bad road network linking the farming communities to the market centres and other districts and so the effect of the rains was devastating, even though it was too early to assess the full impact of the flood.

He mentioned the Zongnatinga and the Kolnaba Rivers among other tributaries of the White Volta that had overflown their banks thereby completely destroying several hectares of crops in major communities including; Dabia, Nakom, Margo, Zaarabogo and Ninkongo communities.