Juliette Lampoh-Agroh, the Country Director, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), has revealed that Ghana’s Seed is the heart of the agriculture sector, hence, the need to give it more attention.
Productivity is very low, and the use of improved seeds is still very low in Ghana, particularly by the smallholder farmers, due to many challenges.
The Country Manager said that smallholder farmers produce a chunk of Ghana’s food commodities; therefore, when the output decreases, it affects the country’s food basket.
“Seed sector is the essence and the basis for the agriculture production sector for any country that is why AGRA is particularly interested in the seed sector. It is one area that triggers every aspect of the production of the agriculture sector. We believe that if we, Ghanaians, invest correctly in the seed sector and improve the productivity of smallholder farmers, we can then thrive in all other sectors in the agricultural sector.
Juliette Lampoh-Agroh
Fertilizers without good seeds are a bad combo
For fertilizer to function and appreciate its usefulness, there should be quality seed. Without quality seeds, nothing can work on the soil, she noted.
She revealed this at the Ghana SeedSAT Recommendations Validation Meeting, held in Accra. The meeting converged the stakeholders in the seed sector to understand the situation for Ghana’s seed system based on the thematic areas and plan the priorities for the investment to develop the seed sector to ensure food sufficiency.
“AGRA has been working in this sector for so many years now and has achieved some successes. AGRA has managed to increase the use of improved seeds from around 11% to 30% by smallholder farmers, but we still have to make sure that smallholder farmers have access to enough quality seeds at the right time to improve productivity and develop the agriculture in Ghana.”
Juliette Lampoh-Agroh
She assured AGRA’s commitment to continue to work with the smallholder farmers by educating them to understand the need to patronize improved seeds to achieve high production and solve food security in the country.
Patronizing local improved seed varieties will stop seed importation
Dr. George Bigirwa, the Head of Seed Systems Development, AGRA, called on farmers to make good use of the available improved seeds.
“Patronizing local improved seed varieties by the farmers will put the government in a better position to stop seed importation or importing food for them to be produced locally.”
Dr. George Bigirwa
The Extension Director at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Paul Siameh, pledged that the Directorate would do everything possible to ensure proper information dissemination on the use of good improved seeds to the farmers.
“We will do everything possible to ensure the proper information of AGRA programmes which we have been doing through the Ghana Extension System Strengthen Projects reach every farmer. We have supported many farming communities with improve seeds, conducted field demonstrations and followed up with field days.”
Dr. Paul Siameh
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