Organic Farming Given A Boost in West Mamprusi District

Beneficiaries with donkeys/carts

A selected number of twenty-four peasant farmers from the West Mamprusi District of the Northern Region of Ghana, whose communities are persistently being bastardized by negative effects of climate change, have been supported through an organic agriculture project by the Zasilari Ecological Farms Project –a non-governmental organization.

The beneficiary farmers, who are all in their youth and from twelve climate change prone or vulnerable communities namely; Gbimsi, Zangum, Bugya, Boamasa, Timpela, Gagbini, Boakudow, Takorayiri, Tinguri, Moatani, Nabulugu and Binduri, received donkeys and carts to boost their farming business.

According to Executive Director of Zasilari Ecological Farms Project (ZEFP) David Agongo in an interview with Savannahnews, the support for the beneficiary farmers came through the Ghana Organic Agriculture Project (GOAP), a Holland based donor organization, to enable them cart compost manure to their farms.

He explained that, the ultimate objective of the project was to build the capacities of all beneficiaries in best organic farming practices so that they would also transfer the knowledge acquired to the present generation and those yet unborn.

Beneficiaries, Mr. Agongo noted, had been sensitized on the dangerous effects of bush burning, indiscriminate felling of trees, the use of chemical fertilizers as well as pesticides and weedicides.

He disclosed that, food security situation in the aforementioned communities was growing from bad to worst each year. Thus, with the organic agriculture support project being rolled out, a lot of the youth he observed, would be interested in farming when adequately supported. 

“They have also been encouraged to use compost manure or animal droppings to fertilise their farmlands”, he said, adding “this system of farming is natural and produce from crops are good for healthy growth in humans than those from other methods of farming”, Mr. Agongo emphasised.

Meanwhile, the entire West Mamprusi District is described by environmental experts as a “buffer zone” due to its proneness to perennial flooding caused by the overflow of the Bagre and Kompianga dams of Burkina Faso, desertification, environmental degradation, bush burning, bad farming practices and indiscriminate felling of trees among others.

With these exposures, a greater percentage of farmers found it almost impossible to feed their families after every cropping season. Therefore, the organic agriculture project by ZEFP among other climate change resilience initiatives being implemented by government according to Mr. Agongo, would go a long way to address the negative climate change effects.