Minister launches livestock project in Tamale

Tamale, July 24, GNA.- Major Courage Quashigah (rtd), Minister of Food and Agriculture, on Thursday launched the Livestock Development Project in the Northern Region and advised Directors of the Ministry to involve farmers in the implementation of the project to make it succeed.

He said previous projects had failed because most activities about their implementation were done without the involvement of the farmers and warned that this time round, the participations of the farmers should be a priority of the implementers.

"I will demand a very high degree of efficiency from the National Directors of the Animal Production and Veterinary Services Directorate and all the Regional and District Directors involved in the project implementation".

"Those times are gone when we spent more funds on workshops and seminars all in the name of 'capacity-building', which did not benefit the farmers", he said.

He said the Ministry would deal drastically with any official who would want to cash in on the project to the detriment of the farmers. The African Development Bank is supporting the project with 24.8 million dollars to revamp the livestock sub-sector to contribute to poverty reduction, enhance food security and reduction in imports of livestock and dairy products.

The project, whose national launch has already been performed by the Minister, is under the theme: "Livestock Production, Ghana's Hope for Food Security, Wealth Creation and Healthy People".

The Minister said the Northern Regional launch was necessary considering that the bulk of the project would be in the region

Major Quashigah announced that the project would be located in eight districts of the Northern Region in the pilot phase. The districts are the Tamale Municipality, Tolon/Kumbungu, Savelugu/Nanton, East Mamprusi, Saboba/Chereponi, West Gonja, East Gonja, and Gushiegu/Karaga. The Northern Region would benefit from 32 out of the 44 dams and 16 boreholes out of the 28 boreholes that would be provided under the project nationwide to ease the water problem facing farmers in the region, especially during the dry season.

He said for the first time, provision of credit to private livestock farmers had been factored into the project, adding that 5.24 million dollars had been provided to enable the private farmers to buy livestock for breeding, to build animal houses, to procure animal feed and veterinary products and to process and market livestock and its products.

He said also for the first time, 0.28 million dollars had been provided for HIV/AIDS, guinea worm, and malaria prevention campaigns in a livestock development project of this nature.

The Minister said the Ministry was collaborating with the Ministry of Health in the fight against HIV/AIDS and announced that the two sectors had taken care of 20 babies born to HIV positive mothers and had tested negative after being fed on fresh milk The two Ministries were also monitoring pregnant women who would test HIV positive so that after delivery, their babies would be catered for in like manner to save them from being infected by their mothers.

In a welcoming address read for him, Mr Ernest Debrah, Northern Regional Minister said there was a vast potential for linkage between crop and livestock production so as to lead to increased production, sustainable food security and sound economic performance.

He noted that it is generally accepted that the Northern Region has the greatest comparative advantage in livestock production and called for the encouragement and intensification of this economic activity to contribute positively to poverty reduction and wealth creation. He said the region accounted for about 30 per cent of the country's cattle population, 21 per cent of small ruminants made up of sheep and goats and 15 per cent of pigs.

The Minister bemoaned the fact that livestock production and development in the region is constrained mainly by inadequate feed and water, especially in the dry season, and said the lack of improved breeding stock and fatal diseases such as anthrax, had accounted for significant losses of livestock.

He said the majority of the farmers had paid little or no attention to the safety of their livestock adding, "many of the farmers leave the survival of their animals to chance, they practice the traditional low-input free-range production system". "Such an outlook and approach hardly permit the farmers to increase production and thereby break the poverty cycle". The Minister said: "If we have to make any impact in poverty reduction, then there is the need to popularize and intensify livestock production and accord it the importance and attention given to crop production".