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Subsidize fertilizers so we can earn a living – Dry season farmers to Gov’t

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Some dry season farmers in the Bolgatanga Municipal of the Upper East Region are appealing to the government to support their work by subsidizing fertilizer and other farming inputs to help them earn a decent living.

According to the peasant farmers, the government’s subsidized fertilizers only come during the rainy season. During the dry season when they engage in dry season farming, the fertilizers available on the open market are beyond their financial reach due to the lack of subsidies. The difficulty in acquiring fertilizers, the farmers say, means they can only cultivate very small fields each year.

The farmers who mostly depend on small earth dams, rivers and mechanized boreholes to water their plants, say they have no other work to generate income apart from farming.

They made these comments when producers of A1 Radio’s Agric Forum visited them at Vea, Zumburugu and Yikine, all in the Bolgatanga Municipality, to get first-hand information on dry season farming.

Michael Ayinbisa Asaah, one of the many farmers who spoke to A1 Radio explained that “in the dry season, we don’t have work. What we do is this small farming. We want to work but our main problem is water. The dam you see here is small, it can’t take care of all of us farming here. Last year, my vegetable farm was almost an acre but this year it is not even close to half an acre. Apart from the water, the fertilizer is expensive too. As we speak a 50Kg bag of Yara fertilizer is GHcs 360. We can’t buy”.

Another farmer, Akolga Akurugu, said ” if the government can subsidize the fertilizer for we the dry season farmers too, it will help us. At least it will help us farm more and our children will not travel down south because they will help us on the farm. Since there is no work for them, when they say want to travel, you stop them. What will he be doing home?”

Awonsina Amoah Abuligo, another dry season farmer, could not understand why the government subsidizes fertilizer during the rainy season but could not do same during the dry season when farming continues.

He said “when we are in the rainy season, the government will subsidize fertilizer for farmers. Why is it that the government will not do same during the dry season? The rainy season farming is not much in terms of income generation to the family. It is this dry season farming that we do small to take care of our children. If you say it is for poor farmers, this is the season that it will rather help us because when we wake up in the morning, we can just harvest paper and sell to buy books for children to go school”.

Meanwhile, A1 Radio’s market survey today, January 25, 2022, on prices of fertilizers on the open market indicate that a 50kg bag of Yara fertilizer though not readily available at most agro-input shops cost between GHc 360.00 and GHc 380.00.

A1radioonline.com|101.1 MHz|Samuel Kantomse Adagom|Ghana

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