The Catholic Church, in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services, International Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC) and Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) are supporting 10,000 farmers to increase rice production in the three northern regions.
The project, which is under the "Emergency Rice Initiative Programme," would supply the farmers with improved seeds, fertilizer and technical advice to enable them to increase yield from the current 1,500 tonnes per hectare to 3,000 tonnes in two years.
Dr. Wilson Dogbe, Country Coordinator of the programme who launched it at Daffiama in the Nadowli District, said the programme is divided into two components made up of viable and vulnerable farmers.
He said viable farmers were quite resourceful and would pay half prices for all the farming inputs such as seeds and fertilizers while the vulnerable farmers who are not resourceful in any way would be supplied with all the inputs free to enable them put up their best to improve on production.
Dr. Dogbe said vulnerable farmers would be sponsored by the Catholic Relief Services for the next two years until they were capable of buying their own inputs.
Dr Stephen Nutsugah, an official of Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research of Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, said the project, which is sponsored by United States Agency for International Development (USAID), would be implemented in Ghana simultaneously with Mali, Senegal and Nigeria.
He said its main objective was to increase rice production and reduce the high rate of rice importation and appealed to rice processors to support the farmers by coming out with good processing procedures that would make the local rice attractive to consumers.
Dr. Nutsugah said the project, which is targeting 10,000 farmers in the next two years, would for this year begin with 4,000 farmers in the three northern regions.
Mr. Abu K. Kasangbata, Nadowli District Chief Executive, commended the sponsors for targeting peasant farmers as that would reduce the level of poverty in the rural areas of the region.
He appealed to the Agricultural Extension officers to constantly keep in touch with the farmers to get the best out of the programme.