He explained that these platforms would constitute structures at the grassroots to help sensitise our people on climate change and smart agricultural practices to enhance agricultural productivity.

Some queen mothers

The chief was worried that due to activities such as deforestation, bush burning and ecological unfriendly farming practices, the climate had been badly affected such that it could no longer support agriculture sufficiently as rainfall patterns had been unpredictable and either too little or too much as a time.

The chief made the suggestion at the climax of the 2022 Kobine festival at Lawra on the theme “Sustaining our Agricultural Productivity in Post-Covid-19: Challenges and Opportunities”

The 44^th edition of the festival which bounced back this year after a two years’ hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic sought to drum home the need to reflect on the critical challenges as well as opportunities within the agricultural sector as one of the greatest potentials for growth of the economy and job creation for the youth.

The Kobine festival is celebrated annually to give thanks to the gods and the ancestors for a successful farming season and in anticipation of a good harvest as well as celebrate the hardworking farmers for their sustained commitment to producing food to feed the nation and export the excess to raise money for development.

Naa Karbo III noted with concern that the current climate change data on the northern ecological zone of the country which included the Lawra Municipality painted a very frightening situation for the present and future agricultural productivity and food security.

“This together with the rising cost of farm labour calls for immediate and concerted action by all stakeholders to respond to challenges posed by climate change; a sustainable approach to tackling the negative impact of climate change on agriculture is to raise the environmental consciousness of our people through aggressive and sustained sensitisation of the people on climate-smart agricultural practices hence the need for the platform requested earlier,” he said.

He mentioned that the farmers in the municipality were faced with challenges with untimely delivery of fertilizer as well as limited access to tractors and other farm in puts and encouraged government not to relent on its plating for food and jobs programme.

“To exploit our agricultural potential for economic transformation, we must rebrand the agro-industry to make it attractive as a viable venture for the youth through mechanisation and introduction of new technologies, small scale irrigation systems for dry season farming and watering of livestock”, he added.

For his part, the Minister for Tourism,Dr Mohammed Ibrahim Awalcommended the traditional authority for maintaining peace in the area and urged them to continue in unity to enhance development of the place.

He said that government was working hard to bring development to the people and mentioned among other things, the construction of 13 health facilities and a number of boreholes in the area as some of the interventions to help develop the municipality.