The Upper East Regional Crop Officer, Henry Ayamba has stated that climate change is the biggest challenge to agriculture in the region.
Farming in the region is dominated by smallholder family farms that are predominantly rain-fed and thus climate sensitive.
Among the impacts of climate change on agriculture are unpredictable and variable rainfall, increasing temperatures and longer dry periods.
“Our biggest challenge, for now, is climate change. You know that that is really affecting everything from preparation to post-harvesting, all that is affected,” Mr. Ayamga said A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show.
Goal 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) urges communities to take action to combat climate change and its impacts but farmers in the Upper East Region are bearing the brunt of climate change.
The Department of Agriculture is taking some steps to mitigate the impact of climate change, according to the Regional Crop Officer.
“We have some of our agricultural technologies that help to mitigate climate change, so we encourage them [farmers] to adopt some of those technologies instead of using the conventional ones that have always like, felling of trees, slash and burn; all those ones definitely affects the environment and exacerbate climate change. So we try to encourage them to move away from some of those practices and rather adopt the practices that are very good for the climate.”
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Osuman Kaapore Tahiru|Ghana
