Mr. Nicholas Tetteh Atter – Agriculture Director at the Department of Agric at the Akuapim North District has reiterated the responsibilities of the extension officers, whose duty he emphasized is to reach out to farmers to train them on best farming practices.
Unfortunately however, he laments that these officers are unable to fulfill these responsibilities due to the lack of necessary funding and logistics like motorbike to aid them in their transportation among others.
According to Mr. Atter, the Ghanaian agricultural sector needs an effective extension delivery. To achieve this however, the Agric Director said “the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) must consider the need to support the extension services with the needed logistics to help them serve farmers with the best farming practices.”
He lamented the situation whereby some agric directors are forced to personally fund some of these operations of the extension officers. “Due to some of the difficulties to secure funds, some directors sometimes are compelled to commit their personal funds for the transportation of extension officers to reach out to farmers,” he added.
Mr. Atter therefore called for the provisions of logistics and funds to ease their work, adding that “they will surely deliver their best services since their customer satisfaction is their topmost priority and that will also help promote Ghana’s agriculture sector.”
Source: Joyce Bedeley/ritefmonline.org/jbedeley9357@gmail.com
