Seed is the heart of the agriculture sector, for fertilizer to really function and appreciate its usefulness there should be quality seed. Without quality seeds, nothing can work on the soil.
“Seed sector is the essence and the basis for the agriculture production sector for any country that is the reason why AGRA is particularly interested in the seed sector, it is one area that triggers every aspect of the production of the agriculture sector. Our belief is that if we Ghanaians manage to invest properly in the seed sector and for that matter help to improve the productivity of smallholder farmers, that can then thrive all other sectors in the agricultural sector”, Juliette Lampoh-Agroh, the Country Director, AGRA Ghana said.
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.
Productivity is very low, and the use of improved seeds is still very low in Ghana particularly by the smallholder farmers due to so many challenges. Smallholder farmers produce a chunk of Ghana’s food commodities, therefore, when the output decreases it affects the food basket of the country.
“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”, the Country Manager added.
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.
Dr. George Bigirwa, the Vice President for PID – Technical called on farmers to make good use of the available improved seeds.
He mentioned that the seed varieties have been released by the seed companies, and farmers should patronize the good seed varieties to produce a good yield.
According to him, patronizing local improved seed varieties byte farmers will put the government in a better position to stop seed importation or importing food for them to be produced locally.
Working with the smallholder farmers to ensure good agriculture practices to improve food production, the Extension Director at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Paul Siameh told Agric Today that the directorate will do everything possible to ensure proper information dissemination on the use of good improve seeds to the farmers.
“We will do everything possible to ensure the proper information through programmes which we have been doing AGRA through the Ghana Extension System Strengthen Projects, we supported many farming communities with improve seeds, conducted the demonstration and followed up with field day”, Dr. Paul Siameh said.
The Planting for Food and Jobs programme has enhanced improved seed patronage by the farmers. As one of the core elements, farmers under the programme are given subsidized improved seeds by the government.
The Director assured the directorate’s commitment to assist farmers in the field of production to engage in the good agricultural practices to produce good healthy food for the country.
