Government asked to implement policies on Sustainable Intensification Agriculture
Dr Charity Osei Amponsah, Research Scientist at Agriculture, Medicine and Environment Division of CSIR-STEPRI, has called on government to put measures in place to help implement the sustainability intensification agriculture programmes at the district level.
Presenting a paper at the Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) workshop in Accra, Dr Amponsah said sustainable intensive agriculture was critical at the global level but not explicitly stated in the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s (MOFA) policy documents, making implementation at the district level difficult, even though there were components of it in parts of the document.
“In our bid to modernise agriculture, we are linking farmers to the markets by developing value chains. We want to make sure that farmers get accessible and affordable improved seeds. This depends to a large extent on resources, thus, logistics and finances which could help bring to bear on the policies laid down.
We are therefore appealing to government to provide needed logistics and resources to the district extension officers to help make Sustainability Intensification Agriculture better in the country”, she said.
She added that, some development partners such as the civil societies and private enterprises were already implementing a lot of the projects in line with sustainability intensification of agriculture, hence, government could have a very strong coordination with these projects at the district level to be able to regulate their activities and also fine-tune them to suit pressing issues concerning agriculture in the country.
“I think there should be a central coordination point where strategies are laid out to regulate monies from donors and the programmes being undertaken to be able to open up the scope and to streamline activities at the district level to see to its effective implementation to the benefit of the farmers and country.”
Source: GNA