ACDEP Project Benefit 15,000 Households In The North

The evaluation of an agriculture project implemented by the Association of Church-Based Development Non-Governmental Organisations (ACDEP) in Northern Ghana eight years ago, has revealed that productivity of target beneficiaries went up by 61 percent and acreages cultivated increased by more than 100 percent against target figures of 33 and 50 percent.

The Farmers’ Agricultural Production and Marketing (FAMAR) project significantly improved the living standards of some 15,000 rural households in the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions at the end of the project period.

Making a presentation on the overview of the US$1.2 million project at a conference in Tamale, Cornelius Kuukaraa, Value Chain Programme Manager of the project, attributed the successes to sustained and conscientious activities such as extension training for staff of Ministry of Food and Agriculture; training of 1, 926 farmers; establishment of demonstration farms; linking farmers to financial institutions to access production credit and among others.

According to him, produce supplied by farmers to Savannah Farmers’ and Marketing Company, a registered private company established by the project, also increased from an initial volume of 957 metric tonnes in 2007 to over 3,000 metric tonnes in 2012.

With the vision to reduce rural poverty through market linkages and the development of effective farmer based organizations, the FAMAR project was the result of a number of feasibility studies conducted by ACDEP and ICCO, a Netherland’s based development organization on the possibility of creating market access for rural farmers in Northern Ghana.

Based on the findings of these studies, the partners agreed to initiate the FAMAR project with funding from ICCO and PSO and ACDEP as the implementing organization.

The FAMAR project which was one of the many projects of ACDEP, sought to establish a transparent and independent production and marketing chain that was beneficial to rural farmers in Northern Ghana and other actors involved. 

The SFMC was intended to secure an attractive fair market price for northern-based crops (sorghum, maize, groundnuts, soybeans, cashew and sheanuts) and also contract farmers to produce and supply to customers according to their quality standards through the company. 

The reason for the action of FAMAR was the seemingly insurmountable problem of marketing of farm produce in the three regions. Projects initiated hitherto, and promoted by both government and NGOs concentrated on production and productivity. The fate of produce after harvest was left to the farmers to handle. This situation saddled the farmers with produce they could not get market to sell to get the cash they so much needed to solve non-food problems.

A survey conducted by ACDEP confirmed the fact that increases in productivity and production alone without a fair and reliable market could not pull the northern farmer out of poverty. For farmers to increase income from farming activities, increase in productivity and production must go hand in hand with access to market that is not only reliable but fair as well. 

Mr. Cornelius Kuuaraa

It was also realized that farmers operated as individuals but not as a group with strong voice and bargaining power, thus the creation of the FAMAR project to address these problems.

The first phase of the project started in 2005 and ended in December 2007 whereas the second phase started in January 2008 and ended in December 2012 with funding from ICCO and the European Union.

However, at the Tamale conference it emerged that, the continued availability of a market for farm produce was the single most important sustainability factor of the FAMAR project.

Some participants complained bitterly about the fact that, they had in stock hundreds of bags of cereals but due to unfavourable market prices currently prevailing, they could not sell them or release them to SFMC for sale.

Participants also agreed that, low capitalization or funding of SFMC had posed a major challenge to its profitability as the company had to rely on expensive commercial loans in order to buy produce from farmers.

Therefore, they appealed to government to be forthcoming by buying their produce at realistic prices so that they would be encouraged to increase their production.

The participants also called on government to consider allowing foreign buyers who were interested in their produce to come into the country and buy them rather than preventing such buyers because of fears of food shortage.

Generally, most of the participants at the two-day conference agreed that the initiative by ACDEP had helped to alleviate rural poverty among a section of smallholder farmers and urged government to support farmers in Northern Ghana to gain sufficient access to markets in and outside the country with their produce. 

In their estimation, the era of farmers only farming to feed their families was no longer feasible especially when they need to meet other domestic expenses. 

Meanwhile, ACDEP, a network of forty church-based NGOs in the three regions of the North of Ghana with a secretariat in Tamale was formed in 1977. The intervention programmes of the forty NGOs are agriculture, natural resources management, water and sanitation, primary healthcare, rehabilitation of persons with disabilities, economic empowerment of women and the provision of rural infrastructure.

The sponsoring churches of these development programmes are; the Catholic Diocese of Wa, Yendi, Damongo, Navrongo-Bolgatanga, the Archdiocese of Tamale, the Anglican Diocese of Tamale, the Methodist Diocese of Tamale, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, E.P Church of Ghana and the Assemblies of God Church of Ghana.