An Environmental Crusader, Nana Dwomo Sarpong, has reiterated the need for the government to initiate steps to construct canals in the northern parts of Ghana to link rivers and dams spread across the area.
This is to make water readily accessible all year round to induce large-scale irrigation farming.
He pointed out that the cost involved in building canals in northern Ghana notwithstanding, the country stood to gain tremendously from such an initiative.
He explained that the area would become the food basket for both local consumption and export if the requisite infrastructure was fully built, as a matter of priority.
“With the availability of water from the canals, local investors would not hesitate to pitch their camps in the northern regions to undertake large scale irrigation farming.
This is because we do not only have vast lands that would induce investments in food and cash crop production, but we also have a lot of human resource which could be easily tapped to turn things around in the north,” he explained.
Nana Dwomo Sarpong, who is also the President of Friends of Rivers and Water Bodies — a non-governmental organisation (NGO) — made this suggestion when he spoke with the Daily Graphic on his return from a trip to the northern parts of the country.
He said local investors would be adequately motivated to undertake large-scale farming in the north if the government initiated the construction of canals to make water readily available all year round.
He said the trip gave him the opportunity to properly access the potential of the north in terms of human resource, land and other natural resources such as rivers and dams that would enhance large-scale farming if they were effectively harnessed.
He said with the availability of dams and rivers in the area, the construction of canals would be feasible, provided the government took it as a challenge and made it a national priority.
He mentioned yams, millet, rice, sorghum, maize, tomato and mangoes as some of the food and cash crops that could be produced for both local consumption and export to reduce poverty associated with the area.
“ I am certain that crops like maize, rice, tomatoes, millet and yams could be cultivated and harvested two or three times annually to make food readily available and affordable to Ghanaians, especially if water becomes readily accessible at various parts of the northern regions,” he prophesied.
He stressed that the availability of food in the northern part of Ghana would also enhance income generation for farmers and thereby enhance accelerated socio-economic development.
“If Burkina Faso has done it, and is now exporting vegetables and other cereals to neighbouring countries, and Israel, of all countries, is sufficient in food production, then Ghana has no excuse not to be self-sufficient in food production, especially considering the vast land available and the rivers flowing through the land,” he noted.
He said the country could also take advantage of the annual spillage of dams from Burkina Faso by tapping the water into the canals that would be constructed and using them for large-scale farming.
north would also make it possible for parents to invest in their children’s education and help nurture their potential more meaningfully.
That, he said, would also enable the youth in the area to acquire the needed employable skills to support sustainable socio-economic development in diverse ways.
“The northern parts of Ghana would soon become the food basket of the nation if we take advantage of both the human and natural resources, which are lying fallow in the area,” he noted.
He said: “The banks would be ready to offer loans to prospective farmers because they are aware that with the needed infrastructure and the commitment on the part of the youth to take to farming as a business, they stand to gain tremendously from such business transactions.”
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