Agro chemical introduced to rice farmers at Atiwa East

An organic based agro chemical known as 'AV5055' has been introduced to the Atiwa East Agriculture Department for rice farmers in the area.

The new technology was introduced by a group of researchers and businessmen with the aim of making rice seeds unattractive to rice eating birds to enable the farmers protect their farms.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Anyinam, Mr Samuel Ofosu, the District Agriculture Director, said the gesture was to encourage more farmers in the district to go into rice cultivation in order to create employment for themselves and others.

He said the 'Special Rice Initiative', introduced by government as part of the 'Planting For Food and Job' (PFJ) programme was to enable farmers to venture more into rice production in the country.

To ensure the success of the program, he said, the assembly is collaborating with researchers to ensure that rice farming becomes the top crop cultivation in the district with the introduction of modernized technologies.

He said the major challenge that many rice farmers faced in the area was the destructive activities of birds on their farms, hence the intervention.

This, he said, make the farmers lose a whole field of crops cultivated.

Mr Ofosu said a field test on the use of the new chemicals have been demonstrated to 50 participants, made up of farmers, input dealers, researchers and some staffs of the Department of Agriculture on the use of the new chemicals on a rice field at Moseaso.

He said farmers were taken through the processes involved in the application of the chemical and expressed satisfaction on how the farmers showed interest in the intervention.