Farmers asked to manage natural regeneration

Mr Edward Anaba, a Project Manager at World Vision Ghana in-charge of the Ever Green Agriculture Project, urged farmers to manage natural regeneration, saying it is key to improving livelihoods of poor communities.

He said soil and land degradation have negatively impacted on rural communities and their livelihoods with the increasing effects of climate change, and called on communities to embrace the practice to get back degraded lands and ensure that food security for people living in rural communities was guaranteed.

The Project Manager who made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga, called on other communities to emulate the practice to improve on lives in their communities.

Mr Anaba who manages the Talensi Development Area office of World Vision Ghana in Tongo said, the practice by some beneficiary communities in Talensi, Garu and Bawku West Districts over the years had changed degraded lands to more profitable ventures through the growth and management of trees and shrubs that otherwise would have been left to wither off or burnt by communities members.

He encouraged the beneficiary communities to sustain the gains, and said “World Vision has a part to play in lifting the livelihoods of the poor, especially children, and we feel that lives of children is important and so when communities manage their natural resources well, it has impact on children who are able to explore their God given talents”.

He said farmer managed natural regeneration was key for communities confronted with land degradation problems and indicated that some communities have seen the effects on their yields, and livelihoods because of effects of climate change.

Mr Anaba said the practice involved the use of low cost natural resource to bring the needed changes to the environment and added that failure to adopt the method now could have more repercussions for the future because any other measure would come at an increasing cost considering the rate of climate change on the environment.

He appealed to communities that continuously degraded lands to allow natural shrubs to grow without indiscriminately burning them, and to protect trees and avoid practicing other expensive interventions that could not be sustained.

He said World Vision was passionate about improving livelihoods of people in communities and enumerated some of the gains made by the interventions such as mobilizing communities to establish woodlots which checked the time spent by women to search for fuel wood for cooking as they properly manage the woodlots.

According to him, the other intervention World Vision prioritized was capacity building training for farmers to enable them manage the resources, and said his outfit collaborates with the Ghana National Fire Service to train communities to fight and prevent fires.

He said farmers were trained in conservation agriculture to enhance their skills to understand local weather dynamics to enable them to be informed on appropriate time to plant among others.

He said farmer managed regeneration was not a practice in isolation, but came with other activities which his outfit did not renege in providing needed capacity building training for beneficiaries, adding that it inured to farmers to undertake alternative livelihood ventures in the Talensi District such as bee keeping, village savings and loans for women to carry out their ventures.