The overall best farmer who has acres of cassava, maize, yellow melon and pepper, for his prize received a motor bike, certificate, machetes, knapsack sprayer, Wellington boot, wax print, raincoat, weedicide and insecticide.

The other nine award winners also received certificates, knapsack sprayers, wax prints, 32-inch television sets, weedicides, pesticides, live jackets, machetes among other prizes.

The Managing Director of Medissah Variety Farms, Mohammed Issah, who received the prize on behalf of the company, gave an assurance that despite land challenges and climate change his farm faced, they would continue to use innovative methods they were taught by the extension officers to produce more in the coming years.

Criteria

The Asuogyaman District Director of Agriculture, Hilary Doe Alagbo, said the criteria for the selection included diversification and integration of farming operations, scale of operation and innovativeness.

Others were knowledge of cultural and husbandry practices, marketing strategy, farm records and managerial practices, adoption of new technologies, role in the community and general impression of the award winner and his/her activities.

He advised the farmers in the district to work closely with the agricultural extension officers in their areas for guidance.

Mr Alagbo said it was becoming almost impossible for farmers in the district and other agricultural value chain actors to access credit from the financial institutions because of high interest rates and the perception of the lending institutions that farming is a risky business among other factors. 

Credit

He said in order to mitigate the impact of inaccessibility to credit by farmers, the Agricultural Department in the Asuogyaman District had formed five Village Savings and Loans associations (VSLAs) in four communities, namely Tortibo, Apeguso, Nnudu and Atimpoku this year.

The membership of these associations include farmers, processors and marketers, who have been able to access credit at low interest rates for investment from their own collective savings.

 Mr Alagbo said plans were far advanced to form more VSLAs in other communities in the district in the coming year.

He hinted that the number of agricultural extension officers in the district kept dwindling, making it difficult for more farmers to access agricultural extension services.

He explained that his department had eight officers and three veterinary technical officers overseeing the whole district, which was a challenge to the department.

To mitigate the challenge, he said the department had put a strategy in place to form farmer groups in all the farming communities in the district, so that more farmers could be reached with improved technologies.

The District Chief Executive (DCE), Samuel Kwame Agyekum, said the district assembly had facilitated the distribution of 21, 464 oil palm seedlings and 4,000 coconut seedlings to 118 farmers across 16 communities in the district, which he hoped would help curb the effects of climate change and improve income levels of beneficiary farmers.

He said the recent spillage of the dam at Akosombo had negatively affected the farmers along the Volta River in the district, adding that but for the benevolence of individuals and organisations, the situation in the affected communities would have been worse.