USAID SSTP projects improving lives of rural farmers in A/R

Support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the implementation of its Scaling Seeds and Technology Partnership (SSTP) project in some three districts of the Ashanti Region, is impacting heavily on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers spread across the Region.

The SSTP project, a 3-year initiative which forms part of the G8’s New Alliance for food security, is being funded at a cost of about US$420,000, and is intended to accelerate smallholder farmers’ access to transformative agricultural technologies.

The project is an up-scaling of a previous AGRA led initiative to produce and supply improved cassava cuttings. It is building on the successes gained under the AGRA project to further develop the capacity of some agro-based industries and farms to benefit more farmers.

It aims to increase the production of high quality disease-free seeds of cassava, yam, maize and soybeans, and ensure that more farmers in the country gain access to innovative agricultural technologies, in ensuring food security and poverty alleviation.

To make things more feasible, the SSTP project is seeking to build a competitive and market-based Root and Tuber Commodity Chain (R&TCC), and also working to link small producers, processors and traders to larger scale industrial end-users such as breweries.

The SSTP project is currently being implemented in the Mampong Municipality, Sekyere Central and Ejura Sekyeredumase districts with local partnership support from Josma Agro-Insdustries and Pee Farms Limited.

At a visit to Josma Agro-Industries by a team of media personnel to assess progress of work, Mrs. Janet Gyimah Kesse, Managing Director of Josma, explained that the project, which was started in September 2014, is at the moment at the multiplication stage.

She noted that even at this level, the project has been of huge benefit to the three districts  with the training of over 1,500 farmers, while a projected 20,000 people are also expected to benefit from other community and radio engagement and educative activities instituted to support the farmers.  

She said the overall project execution would position Josma to produce and supply about 7.2 million seeds of cassava, 500,000 mini-sets of yam and expected to cover about 46 hectors of yam and cassava farmlands.

In all, she listed that an estimated 64,000 famers and households, within the Mampong Municipality and its immediate environs, would benefit from the SSTP project.  

She said the project has increased the knowledge of farmers on the benefits of using certified cassava and yam seeds as well as its continuous availability for smallholder farmers in the project intervention zones.

She also mentioned that it has also improved the adoption of the high quality seeds of cassava and yam and the delivery of certified planting materials directly to smallholder farmers among others.

The MD earlier indicated that AGRA’s support to Josma, in the past, helped to multiple about 40 hectors of 10 varieties of cassava leading to the production of about 4.2 million cassava seeds supplied to over 1,260 farmers within Mampong and the other two surrounding districts.

She said the improved variety and disease resistant cassava cuttings produced as compared to the low yielding local variety, have a shorter maturity period and are able to fetch over 12 to 15 tons of cassava depending on the soil type.

She said Josma also makes good use of the cassava produced into high quality cassava flour and industrial flour and supplied to the export and local markets and schools.

Mrs. Gyimah Kesse said her challenge has particularly been the unreliable rainfall pattern, absence of ready market for produce of out-growers and increasing huge cost of labour among others.

“The solution to solution to labour issues is total mechanization but doing that would also put a lot of people out of work,” she stated.

At Ejura, the Chief Executive of PEE Farms, Alhaji Issifu Pangabu, a former Member of Parliament for Ejura Sekyeredumasi Constituency, said PEE Farms has received grant from USAID to produce and supply of high quality seeds of improved maize and soybean varieties to smallholder farmers.

He explained that this would also help to create awareness among smallholder farmers on the importance of using high quality certified seeds of improved varieties and also improve their distribution networks through engaging agro-dealer to service farmers in the project intervention areas.

He noted that most Ghanaian farmers are not able to make enough money from their farming activities because they lack knowledge in the right seeds adoption and poor farming practices.

“Farmers don’t plant the correct seeds, what they plant is grain, but seeds are certified and tested and gives one has an idea of the germination percentage even before you go ahead to plant it,” he said.

He said it was against it is this backdrop that USAID has come in to support in the scaling up of the seeds industry and get the right varieties of seeds for farmers.

He advised that Ghanaian farmers adopt hybrid maize seeds because it can withstand drought, and specifically also due to the unpredictable nature of the weather.

He said PEE Farms has developed about 600 acres of different varieties of seeds made up 40 acres of hybrid seeds, 110 acres of open pollinated variety (OPV) and 450 acres of out-growers.

He said about 400 farmers within the Ejura Sekyereumasi district and its environs have been exposed and trained on the various varieties and right farming practices to achieve maximum yield.

PEE Farms has already harvested 180 metric tons of maize an 85 metric tons of soybeans working with about 360 farmers who have been put into groups of 20 of 18 members each. It also cultivated 180 hectors of OPV maize and 120 hectors of soybeans.

He said PEE Farms is targeting to produce 10,000 mini-bags of both hybrid and OPV through the SSTP project.

The SSTP project which has been made possible with the help of the generous support of the American people through USAID is hoped to further transform the lives of smallholder farmers in the country.