He described such a move as the most critical intervention needed to change the face of the agriculture sector and ensure food security, particularly across Northern Ghana.

He said the changing rainfall pattern caused by climate change had shortened the farming season in northern Ghana, especially in the Upper East Region, making rain-fed agriculture increasingly unreliable and threatening the livelihoods of thousands of smallholder farmers.

“Today, we cannot continue to depend on rainfall. We need to invest more in irrigation projects, including small dugouts and boreholes, while pursuing larger interventions such as the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam,” he said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Bolgatanga.

Dr Nyaaba who is also a former Executive Director of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, maintained that strategic investment in irrigation would not only improve food production but also create jobs, increase farmers’ incomes and build resilience against climate change.

He noted that unlike previous years when farmers would have begun harvesting early millet and groundnuts by July, delayed rains meant many had only recently planted, leaving them vulnerable to the early cessation of rains in October.

He stressed that unless irrigation was prioritised, farmers who planted late risked losing their crops, worsening poverty and food insecurity in the region.

“The day we properly construct the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam to harness water that currently flows into the sea, for irrigation and hydroelectric power generation, poverty in Northern Ghana will become a thing of the past,” he said.

Dr Nyaaba expressed concern that successive governments had paid insufficient attention to irrigation despite its importance, arguing that current agricultural interventions were overly focused on fertiliser distribution.

“Fertiliser alone is not the solution. If the conditions for crop survival are not addressed, particularly access to water, fertiliser will not deliver the desired results,” he said.

He explained that irrigation should be the foremost priority in agricultural development, ahead of other interventions and that water remained the biggest constraint to farming in the Upper East Region.

“Our biggest challenge is not land or labour; it is water. If you ask me to rank interventions in agriculture today, irrigation comes first before everything else,” he emphasised.

The agricultural expert said government should adopt a multi-pronged irrigation strategy by investing in large-scale projects, rehabilitating existing dams, constructing community dugouts and supporting farmers to develop borehole irrigation systems.

He noted that while many farmers had resorted to drilling boreholes with their own resources, the high cost placed such investments beyond the reach of women and young farmers.

Dr Nyaaba urged government to move beyond consultations and implement practical interventions that would strengthen irrigation infrastructure across farming communities.

He cited countries such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, China and the United States, where irrigation had enabled year-round agricultural production despite difficult climatic conditions.

“These countries are succeeding because they rely on irrigation. We cannot continue to depend solely on rainfall and expect agriculture to thrive,” he said.

The former Executive Director of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana also advocated a review of the One Village One Dam initiative, explaining that although the concept was sound, poor site selection and construction challenges undermined its success.

“We should not throw away the concept because of implementation challenges. The loopholes can be corrected to make it work,” he said.