Certified seeds to be made available to farmers
An initiative to make more certified seeds available to farmers for planting during the 2017 main cropping season in Northern Ghana has been introduced.
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The programme is a collaboration between Agricultural Technology Transfer (ATT) and the National Seed Trade Association of Ghana (NASTAG).
It is aimed at increasing the current 11 per cent usage of certified improved varieties of maize, rice and soybean for cultivation by farmers in Northern Ghana to 27 per cent this year.
The overall objective of the project is to increase the use of certified seeds for the three crops selected for the project to 40 per cent by 2018. The crops are maize, rice and soybeans.
Meeting
The Chief of Party of the ATT project, Dr Gary Mullins, disclosed that at a two–day sensitisation workshop for seed value chain actors in Northern Ghana in Tamale.
The meeting was organised with sponsorship from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under its ATT project. It was attended by members of the seed producers association of Ghana and other stakeholders in the seed value chain. It was to share ideas and the best practices in the seed sector among stakeholders.
Target
Dr Mullins gave an assurance that the ATT project would support 70 seed producers this year as part of the initiative to produce more certified seeds for the three crops to smallholder farmers in the beneficiary areas.
He explained that the move was to contribute to increased crop production, improve incomes for farmers and also ensure food security in the country.
Dr Mullins added that as part of the programme, a seed van would be employed to ensure that certified seeds which were critical inputs to increase productivity reached farmers in their communities.
Seed Security
The coordinator for West Africa Seed Programme, Dr Solomon Gyan Ansah, who took the participants through topics such as the Plants and Fertiliser Act Section 2, the role of the government and the private sector, said it had been indicated clearly that the country needed to have seed security stocks to rely on in times of emergency.
However, he said in part two of the Plants and Fertiliser Act that there was no delineated section that talked about seed security stocks.
Dr Ansah, therefore, tasked the seed producers association to support the review of the Acts which was passed in 2010 to incorporate the seed security stocks to enable the country to respond adequately in times of an emergency or disaster.
Commendation
An executive member of NASTAG, Mr Thomas Havor, commended the ATT for their intervention and said the support would help improve on the incomes and welfare of the farmers.
He, therefore, appealed to all seed producers in the area to come together and take advantage of the project to produce more certified seeds for farmers to increase their productivity.