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As part of efforts to mitigate the effects of the dry spell on crop farming, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in partnership with Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and Ghana Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL) has secured an amount of US$166 million to be disbursed to commercial farmers across the country.
In the months of June, July and August, a severe drought gripped Upper West, Bono East and Northern regions of Ghana which affected over 928,000 farmers and threatened the country’s food production such as maize, rice, groundnut, soybean, sorghum, millet and yam.
The dry spell resulted in significant losses for farmers, with an estimated investment loss of GH¢3.5 billion and a revenue loss of GH¢10.4 billion, which led to a 10 percent decline in agriculture Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Bryan Acheampong, in a press briefing on Tuesday outlined efforts by the Ministry to improve food safety.
He said US$166 million distribution of funds will be allocated to commercial farmers with an interest-free rate to farmers who crop more than 10 hectares of land.
He said the government has secured GH₵50 million to pay for the interest rates for farmers, hence, the bank will evaluate the farmer’s proposals and then give the amount they need without any interest.
Dr Acheampong said this initiative is to help improve food security and ensure that the country has constant access to food commodities amid climate change.
Further, he said the ministry has commenced the distribution of 118,000 metric tons of fertilizers and 5133,000 metric tons of seeds to 800,000 smallholder farmers cropping below two acres of land.
Additionally, 20,000 metric tons of fertilizers will be distributed to commercial farmers nationwide, and each farmer will receive 50 bags of NPK fertilizers and 25 bags of urea. Thus each farmer will receive two bags of NPK fertilizer, one bag of urea and one bag of maize or rice seeds.
These application inputs will enable farmers to produce approximately 360,000 metric tons of paddy rice and 770,000 metric tons of maize to meet the growing needs of citizens.
Another mitigation measure by the Ministry is to distribute vaccines and feeds to poultry farmers across the country. However, the distribution will commence on October 10, 2024.
