The Ghana Federation of Forest and Farm Producers (GhaFFaP) has called on Government to make adequate budgetary allocation to support smallholder farmers in northern Ghana to undertake land restoration through tree planting.

According to GhaFFaP, the move would reclaim the degraded landscape and forest reserves and avert the adverse impact of climate change bad weather conditions and contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

GhaFFaP is a Federation of Forest and Farm Producer Organizations (FFPOs) and has members drawn from three Ecological Zones including; Savannah, Transitional and Forest Zones of Ghana.

Mr Benjaman Sarfo, Business incubation team member of GhaFFaP, made the call on behalf of the group when he presented at the GhaFFaP–Savannah Zone Round Table discussion held at Navrongo in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region.

He explained that the Northern parts of the country were the hardest hit when in terms of climate change hence the need for Government to provide incentive packages for smallholder Forest and Farm Producers to embark upon tree growing.

Mr Sarfo said as part of GhaFFaP 10-Year Strategic Initiative, the Federation had instituted GhaFFaP Green Ghana Smallholder Forest and Farm Producers in place as key partner to complement government’s efforts at addressing land degradation issues.

He stated that among the objectives of the Federation was to help contribute to restoring of over 30,000 hectares with conservation farming and tree growing, addressing climate change as well as support government’s efforts at creating 20,000 jobs for Forest and Farm Producers.

Organization (FFPO) members including women, youth and Persons with Disability (PWDs).

“The Federation intends empowering these groups of people through the creation of green businesses and farms. The approach is to establish three Ecological GhaFFaP green tree centres, facilitate establishment of 60 GhaFFaP green community gardens, 30 community nurseries strategically located to produce tree seedlings, Business skills training to 5000 forest and farm producers working in tree value chains”, he hinted.

Mr Clifford Amoah Adagenera, another Business incubation team member of GhaFFaP, noted that it would be difficult for Ghana as signatory to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve the Climate Change component if it failed to support farmers with incentive packages to engage in activities that would fast track the restoration of the landscape.

He explained that realizing that the government alone could not address the issue, prompted GhaFFaP members to initiate the above-mentioned interventions and indicated his outfit had already distributed some indigenous tree seedlings to groups in communities including, women, youth and PWDs to grow in their respective communities.