Many Ghanaians may experience hunger this season as food crisis
looms in the country’s agricultural sector as a result of late rains.
Erratic rainfall pattern has dominated the year, culminating into
late planting by farmers who depends largely on favourable climate for
bumper harvests.
The late arrival of rain this year,
Weekend Sun learnt,
threatens to plunge the country into some form of food shortage, as
most of the sustaining crops were not planted at due seasons.
With agriculture being the primary driver of the economy, as well as
it being the primary source of livelihood for over 80 percent of those
engaged in farming, the absence of the rains has led to the farmers
experiencing huge losses leaving a lot of them neck deep in debt.
The Ghana Meteorological Department, GMD, had predicted earlier in
the year, that there would be low rainfall this year as well as an early
cessation, (short rainy season), for almost the whole country due to
climate change.
The accuracy of the predictions has led to huge losses to the farmers as most of them couldn’t sow their seeds on time.
The alteration in the weather pattern is leading to a shortfall in
rains and thus threatening the livelihood of the farmers as well as the
well being of the nation.
Farmers, especially those from the middle belt of the country,
Techiman, Nkoranza, Wenchi and Kintampo, appear to be the worst affected
by the erratic rains.
These farmers who are major producers of arable crops to feed other
parts of the country are major suppliers of crops like cassava, yam and
maize, complain of poor growth in their crops and expressed
disappointment over anticipated poor yield.
Sharing their perspectives on the rainfall pattern in the country and
its effect on their expected produce, the farmers noted that a
likelihood of the entire country, being plunged into a food shortage,
appeared imminent.
“The rains really disappointed me this year,” 42 year old Nkoranza
based farmer, Kojo Adusei began. “If we don’t take time, the lack of
rains will have a toll on our harvests and might put the country into
some form of food crisis.”
With the middle belt serving as the food basket of the country,
farmers in this zone have started counting their losses after investing
heavily in preparation of the lands and planting of seeds.
“Most of us invested heavily in preparing our lands but the rains
failed to help us. Our crops didn’t do well at all and this will affect
us as well as the country in general,” Ama Serwaa, a yam farmer in
Techiman lamented.
She also reiterated that if the trend continues, the country would face an imminent food shortage.
“We are praying the trend changes because if the rains don’t set in, then the country will be in serious trouble.”
This gloomy picture from the farmers appears to have been
corroborated by a research from the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana
(PFAG), who believes in the likelihood of a food shortage.
Speaking in an interview with the
Weekend Sun,
the Programmes Officer of PFAG, Charles Nyaaba, said the erratic
rainfall pattern means that most of the farmers would have to wait for
the rains before they could proceed with planting their seeds.
“The middle zone, including Kintampo, Techiman, Nkoranza, Wenchi
etc, have experienced very minimal rainfall and have been worst
affected by the poor rains. This pattern will impact negatively on the
produce from these areas. Most of the farmers were waiting for the rains
to set in before planting their seeds but because they didn’t come on
as scheduled, majority of the farmers couldn’t plant their seeds.
“So you realise that the middle zone will be greatly affected by the
shortage of rains which could impact negatively on the country’s food
stock,” he said.
Nyaaba however explained further that reports from other parts of the country could balance the shortage from the middle belt.
According to him, reports from the Northern and Southern belts showed
that even though the rains were erratic as well, the harvests wouldn’t
be greatly affected.
“The reports we are receiving from the Upper East and West as well as
the Northern region, indicates that this is not going to affect the
crop yield even though the rainfall pattern was not regular. When you
come to the southern zone too, Asutuare, Ashaiman, Volta, Central,
Western and Eastern regions, even though reports also proved that the
rains did not come early as expected, they were still able to make
amends and have some appreciable yield.
“So the only people affected in this case are those in the middle
zone. And I believe the northern and southern zones will balance the
effect from that zone.”
On his part, the General Secretary of the General Agriculture
Workers Union, Kingsley Offei – Nkansah, was of the view that the
country risks facing food shortage, even though “it will not be on the
large scale.”
“There could be a shortage but certainly not on a large scale.
Sometimes the food produce situation gets bad at one part and another
part balances. For instance one part of the country will have bad
harvest and another part will also have good harvest. Also cross Border
trading from our neighboring countries will help us and this will
manage to cover up any severe food shortage,” he said.
THE SUN | ekow ANNAN
