The Executive Director of the Forum for Natural Regeneration (FONAR), Sumaila S. Saaka, has described Striga, commonly known as witchweed, as a “silent driver of hunger” in Northern Ghana and called for increased national investment to tackle the parasitic weed.
Speaking at a Striga sensitisation forum for journalists in the Upper East Region, Mr Saaka said the weed threatens staple cereal production and should be treated as a food security issue rather than a problem for individual farmers.
For farmers cultivating maize, millet and sorghum, he said, Striga attacks crops from beneath the soil, taking water and nutrients from their roots before the weed becomes visible.
“It is a weed that attaches itself to the roots of our staple cereals, drawing away water and nutrients long before it ever shows its face above the soil. By the time its purple flowers appear, the damage to that season’s harvest is often already done,” he said.
Mr Saaka said the prevalence of Striga also points to a deeper problem of declining soil health, particularly in areas experiencing loss of tree cover and organic matter.
“Where soil fertility declines, where tree cover is lost, where organic matter is stripped from the land season after season, Striga finds exactly the conditions it needs to thrive. And so our response, through approaches like Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration, has always been to treat the land itself as the patient,” he said.
He therefore called on the government to combine measures to control Striga with investments in restoring degraded agricultural land.
“Government must fund community-level biocontrol and awareness programmes, not just top-down directives. Restore degraded soils alongside pest control, and make Northern Ghana cereal security a budget line, not an afterthought,” he said.
The forum was organised by FONAR in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) to improve journalists’ understanding and reporting of Striga and its effects on farmers.
Mr Saaka said the media could play an important role in providing farmers with information about the weed and available interventions.
“We have brought you here today because we believe deeply in the power of accurate, well-informed journalism to change the trajectory of a problem like this one. A single well-researched broadcast can reach many farming households that no extension officer or field visit ever will,” he said.
Upper East Regional Director of the Department of Food and Agriculture, Alhaji Zakaria Fuseini, said reports from agricultural extension officers across the region repeatedly identify Striga as a challenge.
“As the Regional Director of Agriculture, I review district reports every season, and one problem appears again and again from our extension officers across this region: Striga,” he said.
He said MoFA has been supporting farmers with improved seed varieties and agronomic advice but needs stronger collaboration with the media to improve public understanding of the problem and available interventions.
Upper East Regional Chairman of the GJA, Albert Sore, said threats such as Striga can receive less media attention than more visible agricultural challenges such as floods and droughts.
“Sometimes, as journalists, we are more familiar with the issues that make the headlines. But there are also problems that do not necessarily make the headlines every day. They develop quietly, over several years, but their impact on farming households can be very serious. Striga is one of those problems,” he said.
He encouraged journalists to engage farmers and agricultural experts to improve public understanding of the weed and its impact on farming communities.
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