Northern Development Authority to grow and export grass to Singapore

The Northern Development Authority (NDA) has dropped a hint that it will soon go into the cultivation and exportation of grass to Singapore and other countries worldwide under a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the authority, Dr Abdel-Majeed Haroun who dropped the hint at a recent in event, disclosed that stylosanthes, centrosema and guinea grass are the types of grasses to be cultivated under the initiative.

The move in his view, will help create jobs for the teeming youth of Northern Ghana taking advantage of the vast lands within its operational areas.

“I have quite a few partners, who have expressed interest. Once we clear the PPP arrangements or the land arrangements, they will come and then each of them will be a nucleus and they will help out-growers to cultivate the grass”, he disclosed.

He was optimistic that the project once it comes upstream will create jobs and improve incomes of farmers who will be engaged directly and indirectly.

Dr Haroun at a presentation on “Development Opportunities and Challenges in Northern Ghana” at an inception workshop held in Tamale as part of the Resilience Against Climate Change (REACH) – Social Transformation Research (STR) project said “generally, the grasses that are natural to Ghana are also natural to animals” hence the initiative to cultivate grasses in commercial quantities to sell to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Singapore that did not have the land to grow grass.