Candidates pledge to focus on agriculture to reduce poverty

Accra, Nov. 16 GNA - Parliamentary aspirants vying for the Domeabra/Obom constituency seat in the Ga South Municipal Assembly on Thursday pledged to focus on supporting smallholder farmers to alleviate poverty in the area when voted into power.   They have pledged to provide extension service officers, subsidized fertilizers, pumping water machines, credit facilities, improved road network and help establish a senior high school, technical and vocational schools in the area.   The parliamentary aspirants made the pledge at a forum organized by Actionaid in collaboration with Green Earth Organizations to create a platform for the aspirants to espouse their policy directions on agriculture and also to afford the smallholder farmers the opportunity to bring out issues of concern for attention.   Mr. Edward Qayson, Programme Coordinator of United Communities in Development (UCID), a partner, explained that in spite of the contribution smallholder farmers made in providing food for both the urban and rural folks, the road network linking each community and the national capital was in bad shape.   He noted that due to the bad nature of the road network, the communities largely depended on motorcycles for  the conveyance of goods and people.   He said smallholder farmers did not have access to credit facilities to enable them to expand their farms or buy improved seeds or other inputs such as fertilizers, water pumping machines, cutlasses and wellington boots.   He complained about the absence of agricultural Extension Officers to assist farmers in the areas of fertilizers and chemical application, planting and general education on farming methods and processes.   Other farmers raised concerns such as the lack of potable drinking water, lack of a senior high school or technical/vocational school in the area, sand winning activities and land owners releasing land to mainly commercial farmers at the neglect of smallholder farmers who mainly produced for local and national consumption.   Mr. George Ahadzi, Executive Director of Green Earth representing the two organization, said food security largely depended on smallholder farmers who faced lots of challenges such as bad roads, non-availability of fertilizers, crop disease control and lack of extension officers to offer guidance.   He said parliament usually focussed on discussing issues affecting commercial farmers but neglected those of the smallholder farmers who contributed a lot to national food stock.   Mr. Ahadzi said the forum was also to give the smallholder farmers the platform to hold parliamentary aspirants accountable on pledges they make during electioneering campaigns.   Mr. Daoud Anum Yemoh, aspiring candidate for the NDC and incumbent member of parliament for the area, said he had already done a lot of things for the constituency and would continue to do more as part of his service to humanity.   He mentioned the provision of wellington boots to smallholder farmers, five pumping machines to farmers around Adeiso river for tomato, garden eggs and okro farming, 40 desktop computers to schools, three-bed room teachers quarters each for four communities, 200 street light bulbs, two pickups for the Obom health post and an education directorate at Weija for monitoring, among other things.   Mr. Yemoh asked the people to renew his mandate to enable him to provide subsidized fertilizers to farmers, lobby to improve the road network to facilitate the movement of food stuff and people.   He added that he would collaborate with relevant agencies and partners to provide credit facilities at relatively low interest rates to farmers to enable them to expand their farms.   He would also sit with land owners to address the problems relating to release of land for smallholder farmers.   Mr Yemoh acknowledged sand winning was destroying agriculture land use and pledged to hold a stakeholder meeting between land owners and winners to alleviate the destruction.   On his part, Mr. Sylvanus T. Martey, NPP aspirant, promised to use part of his common fund to establish a senior high school in the area to curb the burden of parents having to take their wards to far distance schools with its attendant cost.   He assured the people he would provide credit facilities to smallholder farmers to enable them to acquire more fertilizers, tractor services and other inputs to improve farming activities.   “I will negotiate with land owners and commercial farmers to release farm lands and also allocate part of their commercial lands to small scale farmers to promote farming in the area and also create dams to encourage small holder irrigation farming”, he added.   Mr. Mushea Nii Akwanor, National Democratic Party candidate on the other hand said the provision of farm machines like tractors and spraying machines were his priority.   He said he had already started a nursery school to provide quality education to children of farmers and was going to provide more school infrastructure to increase access.   Mr. Akwanor promised to fix the bad roads to guarantee smooth carting of goods and movement of people in and outside the area, as well as provision of toilet facilities for the communities.   Mr. Isaac Awuku Yibor, independent candidate, said his focus would be to organize the smallholder farmers into groups to enable them to have easy access to loan facilities and tractor services.   He would lobby the commercial farmers like Blue Skies, Golden Exotic and Bomart Farms Limited in the area to provide toilet facilities, schools, potable water and other social amenities as part of their social responsibilities to the communities.   Mr. Yibor said he would also embark on intensive education to educate land owners on the need to release land for smallholder farmers and impress on sand winners to stop degrading the land.   This forum is the sixth of its kind that has been organised in six regions,  namely Greater Accra, Central, Brong Ahafo, Ashanti, Western and Northern regions.   GNA... 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