Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto
A GH¢287,000
Crop Aggregation Centre, built at Koradaso in the Dormaa
Central Municipality, to support Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme,
has been inaugurated.
The
500 metric tonne facility has been designed to use open and biomass dryers to
reduce high moisture and high content of aflatoxins in maize.
It was
constructed by AMPLIFIES Ghana project – a United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) Food for Progress funded project, which aims at increasing the
efficiencies of the feed value chain.
The
five-year project is being implemented by a consortium – the Adventist
Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), the American Soybean Association
(ASA), World Initiative for Soy in Human Health (WISHH) and a group of
Universities led by Kansas State University.
Reverend
Dr. William Yaw Brown, the Country Director, ADRA, said the storage facility
would significantly help to reduce post-harvest losses.
It
would go a long way to assist farmers to earn good returns from their
production.
Already,
the farmers had been taught how to properly dry and store their maize, he said.
He
said the successful implementation of the PFJ would be a game changer – create
wealth, improve food security and impact the economy.
The
project had trained farmers in the area on how to properly dry and store maize.
Ligaya
Diaz, the Chief of Party, AMPLIFIES Project (ASA/WISHH), said she was confident
that the facility would motivate farmers in the area to increase productivity
so that it would not become a ‘white elephant’.
She
added that, through the PFJ, Ghana would have the capacity to grow maize to
feed the people and cut down on food imports to boost the local economy.
Iddrisa
Watara, the Municipal Chief Executive, announced that the government was
constructing a-1,000 metric tonne warehouse in the area.
Additionally,
90,000 cashew seedlings and 126,000 coffee seedlings had been distributed to
farmers under the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) programme.
Augustine
Ntow, a farmer at Koradaso, thanked ADRA and the project partners for the
facility.
He
appealed to the government to fix the Asenso Number One-Dwen-Koradaso and
Dormaa-Ahenkro-Koradaso roads to make it easier for them to transport their farm
produce to market centres.
He
complained about the low price of maize, which he said, was affecting the
farmers and called for standardized price to motivate them to increase
productivity.
GNA
