Lack of access to farmlands is impeding the implementation of government’s Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJs) and the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) programmes in the Pru East and West Districts of Bono East Region.
Information gathered from the District Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), revealed that many interested youth and farmers in the area have registered and expressed the desire to go into commercial plantation of cashew but, land acquisition remains a key challenge in the districts.
Men at work, food will be ready soon
Sources within the district hinted that chieftaincy disputes as well as land litigations are common in the two districts.
Mr. Nambe Jababu, the Pru East and West District Director of MoFA, said there is a reserve of about 100 bags of rice out of the more than 1000 bags supplied to be distributed among farmers registered under the PfFJs in 2018 crop season.
To establish 500 acres of cashew farms this year, the Directorate raised 20,000 cashew seedlings to be distributed to 167 farmers.
Mr. Jababu said the reduction happened because in the 2018 crop season there were excess in the 46,030 cashew seedlings distributed among the 246 farmers who established 1,150 acres of cashew plantations that created direct and indirect jobs to 310 people in the Districts.
He made the pronouncements when speaking at a meeting of the Heads of Departments and key staff of the Pru East District Assembly at Yeji following a visit by Mr. Augustine Collins Ntim, a Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development in-charge of Rural Economic Development and Agriculture.
Minister of Agric, others on PFJs demonstration Farm
A confirmed information has it that in 2017, 2,188 farmers were registered under the PfFJs, and the figure jumped to more than 3,000 in 2018.
The Ministry of Agriculture says the programme contributed to 50 per cent increase in food production in the 2017/2018 farming season.
However, the fall army worm invasion was accused to had damaged large hectares of maize farms that affected about 871 farmers.
Mr. Collins Ntim expressed dissatisfaction over the number of beneficiary farmers under the PFJs and the PERD programmes, and directed the two district assemblies to collaborate effectively with the MoFA Directorate and intensify public education for the programmes to enroll more farmers.
Prez Akufo Addo and Nananom
He also advised the Directorate to improve on data collection and documentation on the programmes, as that is the surest way to measure the impact of the programmes.
Mr Joshua Kwaku Abonkrah, the Pru East District Chief Executive, advised the people in the area against politicizing the PERD and the PFJs programmes.
He said partisan politics remains the bane of socio-economic development, and advised the people to embrace and partake in government social intervention programmes to improve their lot.
By: Austin Ofori Addo/ritefmonline.org/austinofori.addo@gmail.com
