Investors urged to provide improved seeds to farmers in north

Wa, June 9, GNA - Osafo Patrick A. Apula, National President of Seed Producers Association of Ghana (SEPAG), has appealed to investors in agricultural sector to make improved seeds available to rural farmers at their doorsteps to enhance food production. The availability of improved seeds would help encourage more farmers to adopt the use of such varieties farmers and dispose of the poor yielding seeds that they had been cultivating. Osafo Apula said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Wa after he had distributed some improved seeds to farmers in the Upper West Region.

He said many farmers in the northern regions had their farm crops destroyed in last year's floods and those who stored some seeds had also used them for domestic consumption.

Osafo Apula said farmers were therefore in need of improved seeds this year and that if nothing urgently was done about it, food crops production would dwindle come next year.

He said some other complains from the farmers had been the lack of tractor services and the cost of land preparation as well as the non availability of fertilizers in the districts to help them expand their farmers and maximize crop production.

Osafo Apula said tractor cost for the preparation of an acre of land stood at 25 Ghana Cedis and this is beyond the reach of many farmers.

Osafo Apula said the success or otherwise of the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) would depend largely on the availability of improved seeds, tractor service and fertilizers to farmers at their doorsteps and at affordable cost. Osafo Apula therefore appealed to the government to waive taxes on importation of fertilizers and to allow importers to bring more of the commodity to the country and make them available to rural farmers at their farm gate.

The waving of the taxes on fertilizers should be government's subsidy of the commodity to farmers and government must compel importers to sell the commodity at reasonable prices to the farmers. Osafo Apula said the present government's subsidies on fertilizers through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture had only favoured the privilege few to the detriment of rural farmers and called for its abolition.

The SEPAG President however commended government for the re-introduction of Agricultural Mechanization Centres in the regions to provide tractor services and other inputs to farmers at cheaper prices. "This policy is laudable as it will help farmers have access to tractor services and fertilizers for their crops at the appropriate periods that they need them to enhance food production and improve incomes.", Osafo Apula said. Osafo Apula appealed to members of the Seed Producers Associations to work hard to provide sufficient improved seeds to farmers for the smooth implementation of the Northern Rural Growth Programme to establish industries in the regions to process grains. 0