Shallot farming in Anloga

Shallot is an ingredient with a very low calorie value. It is a member of the onion family which is used as a flavouring agent in the preparation of soup and sauce. Raw chopped shallot is a must in many dishes, especially with potato salad, tomato, cold chicken and toppings for grilled fish.  It is also ground with pepper and tomatoes and consumed with “Kenkey”, “Banku”  ‘Etsew”, and “Abolo”.

Located on the lower bank of the Volta River in the Keta Municipality, Anloga is just 166km from Accra, and is the principal shallot growing town in the country with more than 1000 acres of shallot farms cultivated yearly. Vegetables such as okro, tomatoes, pepper and garden eggs are also cultivated in the area. The area which is very sandy is also noted for the production of copra oil from its abundant supply of coconut. 

History of shallot farming in Anloga. 

Shallot farming in Anloga has a rich history, according to Togbui Awalashie, an 87-year-old shallot farmer. He said during the 1930s, when there were demands for vegetables across the country, individual farmers at Anloga embarked on an intensive filling and reclamation of marshy depressions left by the sea and on the edges of the Keta lagoon, converting them into vegetable farms, and specialising in the production of shallots.

These activities, he said, were extended to neighbouring towns such as Atorkor, Wuti, Dzita, Anyanui,Woe, Tegbi and Vui all in the Keta Municipality.

According to him by 1960, all the available depression on the Anlo coast, totaling about 4,000 hectares of land, were reclaimed and brought under cultivation. Just around that time, an Anlo man called Togbui Dzisam, who was working as a house boy for an expatriate in Togo, brought some shallot bulbs  to Anloga which was planted on an experimental basis.

The yield was so good that other farmers looked for the source of the seed which originated from Agu in Togo, and started planting on a large scale. 

The Shallot Revolution 

Known as “allium aescalonicum’, in botanical terms, shallot is a perennial herb from the lily family. The Ewe call it “Sabala”. It is known in Twi as “Gyeene”, Anwiw in Fanti and “Sabolai” in Ga. It is a short duration crop which takes two months to mature after planting. The shallot seed accepts inter-cropping with tomatoes, pepper, maize, cassava and garden egg, and has become the major crop for the people of the sand dunes of the Keta Municipality.

Shallot cultivation, together with the other crops has become so lucrative such that farmers resorted to the creation of more depressions by means of head portage of the sand and the use of bulldozers by wealthy farmers all in an attempt to get closer to a fresh water table to facilitate the frequent irrigation of the crop.  For centuries, shallot production in Anloga and its environs was very traditional.

Like Togbui Awalashie, there were more than 10,000 traditional farmers along the Keta coastline, who in the past used buckets to bail out water from shallow lined hand dug wells to water their crops. This intensive irrigation horticultural system coupled with the use of organic manure such as cow dung, bat guano, poultry manure and anchovies (Keta school boys) made it possible for farmers to grow three or four times a year.  The average yields of vegetables, especially the dried shallots, were between 10 and 15 tons per hectare.

The Method of Planting

The techniques of planting shallots in the clean soil of the Keta basin is very unique and manual.

It involves the use of two baskets. The larger one Known as “agbledekusi” is used to collect the seeds for both planting and harvesting. The smaller one called “sabalafakusi” is used for planting.

During planting, the smaller basket filled with the shallot bulbs are moved backward as the seed is sown at  specific intervals.

Before the seeds are sown, the bed is levelled with one hand while the other hand is used to press the seed one by one with the root first into the soil and the tip just above the soil in a relay function.
This is done till the whole length of the bed which is always 2m x15m,  is covered.

Women and the Shallot Trade

Ms Theodora Kporti, who sells shallots in the Anloga market said between 1970s and 90s shallot trading became so lucrative that women from Accra, Kumasi, Koforidua, Ho and Hohoe visited Anloga and the Keta market to purchase their shallots. This, she said, resulted in congestion in the two major market along the coast.

According to her measures to arrest the congestion problem were quickly put in place by allowing traders from Accra and Kumasi, the two main shallot buying centres  to visit the Anloga and the Keta market on alternate market days while traders in the smaller buying centres such as Koforidua, Ho and Hohoe could buy shallots every market days.

She said the influx of onions from neighbouring countries has currently rendered  business less lucrative.

The Land Tenure System in The Depressions

The type of land tenure system in the area include share cropping, lease of farm beds and use of the bed as collateral. For example, in share cropping, a farmer who has plenty of shallot beds but is unable to find  labour and seed for all of them might decide to make some plots available to a landless farmer who has seeds and labour.

Another variation was that a farmer who had two occupations, fishing and farming, might decide to concentrate on fishing and make his bed available to a friend or relative to cultivate.

In both cases, the tenant worked and rendered accounts to the owner of the bed after harvest. The limited land in the sand dunes which is sandwiched between the Keta lagoon and the sea, coupled with the high population density in the area and the patrilineal system of inheritance brought about land fragmentation. 

The Tube Well Pump Technology
 
In 1990, the horticultural system in the area saw another revolution which made use of the relatively high lands which were left uncultivated by means of a tube well pump driven irrigation system introduced by Mr Edward Ahiabor, a soil scientist and irrigationist. 

The tube well system consists of an inexpensive bore-hole sunk to a depth of nine meters, a pump powered by electricity, petrol or diesel and water conveyance system made up of pvc pipes and applicators such as sprinklers and perforated water hoses.

This technology transformed farming activities along the coast and contributed significantly to the development of the people in the area.  A survey conducted by the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority in 2004 described the area as having the largest informal irrigation scheme in Ghana with a total of approximately 4000 hectares cultivated all year round. 

The Changing Pattern 

 It is obvious that any significant change in climate would impact negatively on local agriculture and, therefore, affect food supply. In the coastal zone of Keta and Anloga, for instance, anytime there is drought due to some natural phenomenon it affects the water supply to crops, resulting in huge losses because vegetables, especially shallots, need constant water supply for a period of two months before harvesting.

Measures to deal with these conditions resulted in a team of researchers, headed by Professor Henrik Breuning-Madsen of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, to arrive in Anloga in November 2010 to introduce another technology known as drip irrigation to ensure all year round crop production.

Drip irrigation is an irrigation method which saves water and fertiliser by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either onto the soil surface or directly onto the root zone, through a network of valves, pipes, tubing and emitters. It is done with the help of narrow tubes, which deliver water directly to the base of the plant.

This initiative is a collaboration with the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), University of Arhus and the University of Ghana, and is aimed at increasing water productivity by reducing water use by up to 30-50 per cent as compared to the tube well system which is mostly used by farmers in the area.  

Impact of the Irrigation System

Speaking on the impact of the irrigation system in the area, Mr Charles Golomeke, an Agriculture Extension Officer and a tube well farmer, disclosed that if they should concentrate on the sand pits for their farming activities, there would be competition for the fragmented farmlands. 

He said due to the introduction of the upland farming, the pressure on farmlands in the area was no longer there as it should be, adding that continued production was assured throughout the year.
 
"It has given a lot of employment to the youth because almost every space is being used for cultivation.

At least the youth are busily doing something. Every day there is always food production and the technology does not need a lot of energy as compared to the shallow well system," he added.  According to him, the farming system being practised in the area is very sustainable and would continue to support the inhabitants for generations to come.
  
For Mr Roland Tudzi, who is the chairman of the Keta Vegetables Farmers and Marketers Association, “marketing is a major problem facing the farmers in the area because the market is not predictable”.

 Mr Tudzi pointed out that government support in the form of fertiliser subsidy and block farming fertiliser was currently being received. He advised the farmers to come together and fix a price for their products in order not to be cheated by the traders who buy the crops at a cheaper rate and make a lot of profit at the expense of the farmers. To this end, he appealed to the government to build cottage industries for the preservation of the crops, especially tomatoes, which is a perishable crop.   The article was first published on September 9, 2013 in The Mirror.  Click to view more photos