About 100,000 smallholder farmers in the Upper East Region are benefiting from the government’s intervention of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJs) this year, the Regional Director of Food and Agriculture, Mr Francis Ennor has disclosed.
The Regional Director who disclosed this to the Ghanaian Times here on Wednesday, stated that the beneficiaries who are drawn from 15 municipal and district assemblies (MDAs) in the region, have already started benefiting from the subsidised farm inputs including fertilisers and improved seeds under the PFJs.
Mr Ennor said the PFJs intervention last year exceeded its regional target of 50,000 prople, as it registered 55,000 farmers and noted that the interventions contributed significantly to food production in the areas of maize, millet, beans and groundnuts among others.
The Regional Director mentioned the Kassena-Nankana West and Municipal, Bongo, Nabdam and Bawku West districts as those that had been selected to benefit from the new programme of the Rearing for Food and Jobs (RFJs) this year.
He stated that the beneficiary MDAs were selected based on their track records of repaying for agriculture facilities and indicated that selected farmers in these districts would be given sheep, goats, and guinea kits to rear.
Mr Ennor entreated the youth and women groups in the region to avail themselves for the opportunity and indicated that the project would give enough room to smallholder women farmers to benefit since they were noted to have much interest in livestock rearing.
Meanwhile, majority of the farmers who spoke to the Ghanaian Times stated that apart from the PFJs contributing to ensuring their household food security, they also sold some of their farm produce to cater for their children’s education.
FROM SAMUEL AKAPULE, BOLGATANGA