The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana(PFAG) with support from Oxfam, Ghana, has presented food items and Personal Protective Equipment(PPEs) worth GH¢100,000 to about 400 needy small holder farmers in the Upper East and North East Regions.

The food items made up of rice and cooking oil were distributed to the beneficiary farmers in the Bolgatanga and Kassena Nankana Municipalities, Bongo, Talensi, Nabdam, Kassena Nankana West, Binduri and Bawku West districts in Upper East Region and Mamprugu Moagduri in the North East Region.

COVID-19 and Floods

The National President of the PFAG, Mr Abdul-Rahman Mohammed observed that the farming activities of members of the Association had been affected by the Coronavirus(COVID-19) pandemic and the floods in the two beneficiary regions.

“The lockdown period coincided with the onset of the farming season and restrictions on movement of people and goods made it difficult for smallholder farmers to sell their farm produce leading to high post-harvest losses especially for perishable commodities," he noted.

Mr Mohammed further explained that the farmers found it difficult to purchase farm inputs, access credit, procure mechanization and extension services leading to low productivity, revenue loss and high incidence of food insecurity.

“To make matters worse, the 2020 farming year has been characterized by drought in the early part of the year and flooding in September destroying the little that the farmers were able to invest in," he stressed.

Earlier Donations

Mr Mohammed disclosed that the PFAG earlier donated relief items worth over GH¢ 5,000 to its members that were affected by the floods.

Furthermore, he said the PFAG with support from the International Budget Partnership trained over 400 extension officers and farmers on World Health Organization(WHO) protocols on COVID-19 as well as supplied PPEs to over 20 District Department of Agriculture to safeguard them against the spread of the COVID-19 in June this year.

Oxfam

The Programme Manager of Economic Justice of Oxfam, Mr Hafiz Muntaka noted that the working relationship between Oxfam and PFAG started in 2010.He said after Oxfam monitored the impact of the COVID-19 on the farming activities of small holder farmers it came to the realization that the farmers were “heavily hit" by the pandemic.