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Mr. Bernard Guri, Executive Director of the Center for the Development of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations (CIKOD), reiterated the need for the government to allow farmers to work closely with scientists to develop regulations to guide the seed system in Ghana.
He said that although parliament passed the plant variety protection bill, the government could insist on giving local farmers the opportunity to work with a scientist on locally produced seeds.
He said the Green Revolution type of agricultural approach that promoted only chemical fertilizers, the use of pesticides and big machinery for large farmers did no good for the environment.
Mr. Guri, made the appeal during an interview with the Ghana News Agency, after a regional campaign forum for farmers of the northern ecological zone, held in Bolgatanga, in the Haut-Est region.
The forum, organized to raise awareness of agroecology, was supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWAS) and the 11th Hour Project and Joint Action for Farmers Organizations in West Africa (JAFOWA) and in the presence of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Center for Indigenous and Organization Knowledge (CIKOD) and Ghana National Sesame Business and Farmers Association.
The campaign aimed to raise the voice of farmers on the need to include agroecology in Ghana’s farming system.
Mr Guri said agroecology has a better positive impact on the environment than the current type of green revolution agriculture being practiced.
Mr. Guri, responding to the scope of the agenda of farmers’ associations, noted that there had been increased recognition leading to an increase in the organic fertilizer quota given to farmers through official channels.
He said that although the approval for seed production was given by the government, the timing did not favor farmers hence their inability to meet demands, but still hoped that stakeholders would be able to produce viable local seeds.
In a statement addressed to the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo, the farmers called on the government to increase investments in agroecology, in order to combat the impact of climate change on small farmers in the north of the Ghana.
“Current agricultural practices, coupled with mining activities and population growth have contributed to the destruction of our forest landscape, northern Ghana almost looks like a desert with all tree cover and vegetation gone, the rainfall pattern is irregular , high temperatures and the emergence of pests and diseases ”.
The farmers therefore appealed for “increased budget allocation for the continuation of blocked projects” a village, a dam, a subsidy for simple mechanization services and water pumps for young people to practice agriculture and l ‘breeding in the dry season’.
“There is a need to reorient public spending priorities to focus more on important agricultural development, such as rural infrastructure and agricultural skills training in agroecology, with an emphasis on technologies focused on recognition, preservation and the use of traditional and indigenous knowledge, ”they said.
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