Peasant farmers in the Volta and Oti regions have renewed their call on the government to implement a sustainable arrangement for the School Feeding Programme to buy their harvests and support productivity on their farms.

They said that would boost farm yields and tackle the issue of post-harvest losses.

This was among the issues discussed when the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) held a two-day sensitisation workshop on the ‘Feed Ghana Programme’ for farmer leaders in Ho.

The workshop, which was organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, was attended by 45 members of the association in the two regions.

Objective

The objective was to explain the policy document on the Feed Ghana Programme to the participants to guide their activities and benefit their livelihood.

Speaking on the first day of the workshop last Wednesday, a prominent rice and maize farmer based at Peki in the Volta Region, Eric Addae, said there was no point inspiring farmers to increase their yields if there was no guaranteed market for their produce.

He said that large harvests of vegetables were often left on the farms to rot due to the lack of a ready market.

Further, Mr Addae said there was no need to import rice after local farmers had produced and harvested rice bountifully on their farms.

He insisted that the School Feeding Programme had the capacity to absorb all the local farm yields to keep it running smoothly, without resorting to imports.

Other participants expressed similar sentiments.

Food security

The Volta Regional Director of Agriculture, William Dzamefe, earlier said the Feed Ghana Programme, supported by OXFAM, was geared towards food security and lifting the agricultural sector to greater heights.

He said the programme could create sustainable jobs and boost domestic production and food exports.

That, Dzamefe said, would definitely reduce food imports, improve nutrition and increase raw material supply to the agro-industry and value-added processes.

He said 22 priority commodity value-chains had been selected for the realisation of the Feed Ghana Programme, which included cereals, legumes, starchy crops, livestock and tree crops.

Mr Dzamefe told the participants that the programme's benefits would include establishing farmers’ service centres, access to farm inputs, mechanisation, and climate-smart technology.

Exports

The Oti Regional Director of Agriculture, Obrien Nyarko, said the programme was also expected to increase agricultural exports significantly and introduce irrigation schemes across the Volta and Oti regions.

He entreated farmers to form and register groups and co-operatives to facilitate their inclusion in the Feed Ghana Programme.

The acting Executive Director of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Bismark Owusu, said it was time farmers shifted their reliance on the rain to reliance on irrigation.

The workshop topics included Policy Advocacy, Monitoring and Tracking, Budget among others.