The scarcity of fertiliser at the beginning and peak of the farming season forced most farmers to apply inadequate quantities of fertiliser to rice plants coupled with the impact of climate change affected production.

Mr Joshua Diedong, Regional Crops Officer, who recounted the issues that affected production last year, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga said the floods also had a toll on most rice plants.

“The pattern of rain affected the production cycles of rice where there were times of drought and times of flooding which carried rice away from the fields and submerged other fields”, he added.

He said though there was consistent support from government, in the form of seed, to farmers for agricultural production in the region, with needed extension activities, the volumes in production for rice in 2021 reduced because of the fertiliser shortage.

According to him, the region received and distributed the 13,000(45 KG/bag) bags of rice seed to farmers across the region in the cropping season compared with 8,000 bags of seeds in 2020 whilst in 2019, a total of 6000 bags were distributed.

Urea fertiliser which helps in seed formation was also scarce across the region, affecting production volumes which reduced to 127,261 metric tonnes as against 129,782 metric tonnes in 2020.

The Urea fertiliser supply for rice production in 2020 was a total of 495,429 bags while in 2021 only 46,400 bags were received and distributed to farmers, thereby accounting for the shortfall in production volumes.

Mr Diedong indicated that the area put under cultivation in 2019 was 42,000 hectares with a total yield of 2.97m/t per hectare, in 2020, the area cultivated was over 43,239 hectares with yields of 3.0 m/t while in 2021, 43,000 hectares were cultivated with yields per hectare at 2.95m/t.

To address the challenges, the crop officer advocated for an increased collaboration between Government and agricultural development partner organisations to invest in rice valley development to help commercial rice farmers to increase production.

According to him there were more than 15 major rice valleys in the Builsa South District and when adequately developed and put to use, could change the fortunes of the region.

He noted that performance of rice production hinged on adequate mechanisation services, and therefore called for planters, combine harvesters and mini machines for timely harvest of rice from fields.

For strategies in the 2022 cropping season, the crop Officer said the Agriculture department would increase sensitisation on the use of organic fertiliser and encourage farmers to adopt it as an alternative to improve and support rice production.