Activities (District Level)

RADU-TAMALE

SUMMARY OF MAJOR ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT IN THE REGION

• Train 10,000 farmers on dry  season feed production, conservation utilization  and facilitate the establishment of 400 fodder banks with 400 farmers
• Conduct monthly and quarterly RADU,DADU and other cost centre managers’ management meetings in the region
• Facilitate and supervise the proper use of recommended agrochemicals for produce storage in order to minimize post harvest losses
• Mounted about 79 pro cocoons with different capacity to prevent grains from spoilage and organized 5 days training programme for District engineers and RADU staff on the installation, sticking and maintenance of the pro cocoons.
• Facilitate the Sensitization of communities on NHIS, HIV & AIDS and malaria.
• Facilitate the awareness creation on food handling and safety among 4,500 (Males = 1262; females = 1550) farm families & other food vendors in the region
• Generate and pay revenue into veterinary revolving fund account
• Facilitate the training of and train 300 MoFA staff in the districts & region on various agricultural/farming technologies

• Train 100 farmers on the maintenance of fields and fire belt construction
• Received and compiled 300 application for hire purchase of tractors
• Produce and Facilitate the distribution of assorted veterinary drugs to all DADU’s:

1. Anthrax spore vaccine = 20,000 doses
2. Blackleg Vaccine = 8,600 doses
3. Haemoorhagic Septecaemia = 16,800
4. PPR vaccine = 150,000
5. Fowl pox = 14,000 doses
6. Lasota = 12,000
7. Rabies = 1500
8. Gumboro = 11,000

• Facilitate the organization of some selected District staffs and their farmers to visit Mallam’s farm at kukobilla in Savelugu/ Nanton District by NRGP
• Installed 3 water pumps and trained farmers on repairs and maintenance after dry season vegetable production in the Region
• Organize 3 days clinic for 40 combine operators to assess the performance of their combine harvesters and also identify problems associated with each combine harvesters for their repairs.

FERTILIZER SUBSIDY PROGRAMME

Fertilizer Subsidy Programme was instituted in 2008 to help farmers increase their rate of fertilizer application and therefore increase yield per unit area. The prices for various fertilizer for 2010 fertilizer subsidy programme are GH¢30, GH¢29, GH¢25 for Compound fertilizer, Urea and Sulphate of ammonia respectively while for 2011.

FERTILIZER CONSUMPTION LEVELS
	DISTRICTS	Fertilizer Type and Quantity
		NPK	SOA	UREA
1	Bole	240	240	240
2	B/Yunyoo	440	266	150
3	Central Gonja	2,092	1,457	600
4	Chereponi	650	505	120
5	East Gonja	1,560	960	600
6	East Mamprusi	390	240	150
7	Gushiegu	1,620	1,200	420
8	Karaga	4,010	1,555	2,340
9	Kpandai	900	300	600
10	Nanumba North	2,000	2,600	750
11	Nanumba South	690	240	450
12	Saboba	1,370	820	460
13	Savelugu/Nanton	17,624	7,344	10,500
14	Sawla/Tuna/Kalba	815	490	75
15	Tamale Metro	2,880	600	2,280
16	Tolon/Kumbungu	5,268	3,336	1,932
17	West Gonja	4,050	3,900	150
18	West Mamprusi	2,200	1,520	480
19	Yendi	2,550	1,800	750
20	Zabzugu/Tatale	1,310	910	270
	TOTAL	52,659	30,283	23,317

• The Fertilizer Subsidy Programme

Fertilizer Type	Quantities of fertilizer Used (MT)
	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
NPK 15-15-15	2,875	3,016	3,978	4,326	6,157	6,920
NPK 23-10-05	3,045	3,096	4,123	4,869	7,523	8,046
SOA	2,647	2,912	3,025	3,986	6,034	815
UREA	1,236	1,785	1,987	2,365	4,356	6,583
SULFAN	–	–	–	–	–	6,659.0

The table above shows the quantity of fertilizer used from 2005-2010. The increase in the quantity of fertilizer used is due to the awareness creation of the economic important of fertilizer, accessibility and above all the subsidization of the fertilizer prices.

YOUTH IN AGRIC PROGRAMME (BLOCK FARM)

The Block farm programme is being implemented throughout the Region. It has engaged about 15,722 people in farming (1,828F, 13,894M). The main objectives are to support farmers to increase productivity, generate employment especially among the youth, increase income of smallholder farmers and to enhance science and technology among scale farmers.

The table below shows the summary of beneficiaries of the block farm programme in the Region.

SUMMARY OF BENEFICIARIES OF 2010 BLOCK FARM PROGRAMME
GENDER	CROP				TOTAL
	RICE	MAIZE	SOYBEAN	SORGHUM
MALE	6,240	6,362	1,202	90	13,894
FEMALE	631	759	421	17	1,828
TOTAL	6,871	7,121	1,623	107	15,722

  

EXPECTED RECOVERY VS ACTUAL RECOVERY AS AT

15^TH APRIL, 2011

CROP	ACHIEVED AREA (HA)	EXPECTED RECOVERY (BAGS)	ACTUAL RECOVERY (BAGS) AS AT 25/03/11	% RECOVERY	REMARKS
RICE GRAIN	6,714.6	50,358.6	25,953.5	51.54	Recovery is still on-going in the region
MAIZE GRAIN	5,618.6	42,139.5	17,959	42.62
SOYBEAN	855.2	2,138	770	36.0
SORGHUM	120.8	241.6	124.5	51.53

 

AGRICULTURAL MECHANISATION CENTRES (AMSECs) PROGRAMME

The Agricultural Mechanization Centers: The centre established was to let poor farmers to purchase tractors and get access to the use of it. It was difficult to compile beneficiaries because those that purchased the tractors did not report back to the Regional Office. However about 11 AMSECs station is established in the Region.

NORTHERN RURAL GROWTH PROGRAMME (NRGP)

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RICE SUB-SECTOR SUPPORT PROJECT

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ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS

EWB Canada is a Canadian NGO that is partnered with MoFA to help improve service delivery to farmers. Their unique approach is to work embedded in MoFA districts, alongside district staff, in order to better understand the daily challenges facing MoFA and rural farmers. They are uniquely positioned to take these field-level realities and communicate them to donors and development partners at the national and international levels.

EWB works mainly in two areas: 1) organizational development for MoFA, and 2) improved extension services. Within these areas, EWB has worked with MoFA on the following initiatives:

• Creating the Electronic Excel Reporting Template to standardize and aggregate M&E data from across the country;
• Driving forward the Agriculture As a Business (AAB) curriculum, a tool for AEAs to build strong FBOs and facilitate a mindset shift in smallholder farmers to take farming as a business;
• Improving the Agribusiness & Entrepreneurship course at the Agricultural Colleges through the addition of an experiential learning (project) component;
• Initiating the DDA Fellowship, a leadership and management program for DDAs;
• Facilitating local market development through the Eat Ghana Rice campaign;
• Assisting with district-level operations improvements, such as supervision, staff meetings and effective district management practices.

 

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE REGION

• The northern region is blessed with a total land mass of 7 million hectares. Available land area for agricultural production is 4.9 million HA which represents 70% of the total land mass of the region. The land which is currently being used for crop production is 800,000 HA (only 16% of the 4.9 million HA available for crop production). Part of the remainder is used for rearing livestock and the rest approximately 2.5 million HA is potentially available for agricultural purposes
• Presence of high caliber human resources

There are 20 districts and various activities performed in the various district are as follows;

BOLE BUNKPRUGU – YUNYOO CENTRAL GONJA CHEREPONI EAST GONJA EAST MAMPRUSI GUSHEGU KARAGA KPANDAI NANUMBA NORTH

SAVELUGU-NANTONG SAWLA- TUNA-KALBA TAMALE METRO TOLON/KUMBUNGU WEST GONJA WEST MAMPRUSI YENDI ZABZUGU/TATALE NANUMBA SOUTH SABOBA