Shortage of maize Seed disrupts planting in Sissala

Scores of farmers in the Sissala area are worried about the shortage of maize seed for planting coupled with the unpredictable rainfall.

Only those that bought the commodity in the dry season can sow now.

It came to light when the Ghana News Agency (GNA) went to selected Agro input shops in Tumu, Gwollu, and Welembelle to find out about the alleged shortage of some hybrid seeds demanded by maize farmers.

It came out that the major maize seed often used by the farmers included: ‘Pioneer’, ‘Lake’, ‘Pan 53’, ‘Kabamanoj’ and ‘LG 336’ which have become known seeds among farmers for their good yields and drought-resistant nature were out of stock.

A farmer, Asmiru Kwesi told the GNA he wanted pioneer seed but it was not there so he would wait for a few more days to see if they would be available ‘but today being the 21st of June if I don’t get it, I will be forced to go for anything available’.

At another agro shop, WY Farms, Mr Waris Ibrahim, representative of LakeSeedd, said he was expecting 1600 bags of the 50kg seed to come into the Sissala area in the next few days for farmers to buy and gave the assurance that they still had some quantities of the yellow lake seed available.

In an interview with Mr Isaac K. Razak, the Municipal Agriculture Extension Officer, he mentioned that over the years, the farmer’s preference for the Pioneer, Lake, and the LG 336 seed made their absence suggest there was no seed for farmers.

Mr Razak disclosed that there were other seeds such as ‘Seedco’, ‘kabamanoj’ and ‘Mastrop’ in some of the Agro shops including the ones produced by the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute of the Center for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-SARI) which included ‘Wandata’, ‘Bihilnfa’ and encouraged the farmers to buy and plant as they could give equal yields.

Attempts to speak to Pioneer representatives were not successful except for dealers of their products including agro-input dealer Paapa and BB Slows Enterprises who assured the farmers they were working hard to get the seed for the farmers.

The situation of shortage of pioneer and lake seed product was reported in Tumu, Gwollu, Welembelle, and Funsi where thousands of acreage of maize field is expected to be cultivated around this farming season.