To help minimize the effects of the erratic rainfall pattern that has bedevilled the Northern part of the country in recent years, farmers are being advised to adopt early maturing varieties of the crops they grow.
This would help ensure that farmers are still able to make money off of their investments even when the rains stop abruptly.
Henry Awinibod Ayamba, the Upper East Regional Crops Officer said this when he spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show.
“We usually advise farmers to look at the climate, to look at the environment and know the rain pattern in that area; then you can decide which particular crops to grow.”
“Looking at the rainfall nowadays, it is not coming as it used to, if so, we have to begin to probably look at the varieties that you can use; whether you are going to go in for the short maturing variety or the early maturing variety.”
“We have all realized the rainfall patterns have reduced, the rainfall quantities have reduced and the patterns are a bit erratic now. We advise that they should adopt more of the early maturing varieties so that by the time the rains would have stopped coming, maybe your crops would have been almost done,” he said.
Speaking on the same platform, the Upper East Regional Director of Food and Agriculture, Francis Ennor encouraged farmers to pay heed to the advice of Agric Extension Agents (AEAs) as this would help them properly time their planting and harvesting periods.
Earlier, Mr Ennor said that farmers in the Upper East Region would have to be prepared to part with bigger sums of money than they did last year to get the same quantities of fertilizers they need for their farming activities.
This is because of the continuous rise in the price of fertilizers across the globe.
Government is, therefore, unable to cope with the continuous rise in the prices of fertilizers. This is why farmers would have to pay 85 percent of the cost of the fertilizers that would be made available under the Planting for Food and Jobs programme.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
