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Upper East Regional Director of the Ministry of Food & Agriculture (MoFA), Francis Ennor, has urged farmers to take advantage of the ‘planting for food & jobs’ programme to improve their yields.

According to Mr Ennor, the various district offices of the Ministry of Food & Agriculture in the Upper East Region still have fertilizer coupons and are also ready to assist interested farmers to implement best practices to help improve their yields for this year’s planting season. 

“… We released the coupons as and when the districts bring their requests. So if farmers do go these offices, there will not be requests, but let me assure that there are adequate coupons and farmers should not be alarmed,” he stated.

Mr Enno gave the assurance in a brief interview in Bolgatanga to allay the fear of farmers and to counter ‘doom’ claims.

He urged farmers not to use ‘middle men’ to secure fertilizer coupons or any other inputs or information about the ‘planting for food and jobs’ programme but they should rather make it a point to be visiting the regional and district offices when they encounter any challenge.  

So far, the regional office of MoFA has registered and distributed inputs to a total of 16,796 farmers who are cultivating crops like rice, sorghum, wheat, maize, tomatoes and onion across the 15 districts of the Upper East Region as at May 2018.

The Upper East regional office of MoFA had initially targeted 71, 501 farmers for the ‘planting for food and jobs’ in the 2018 farming season. 

“The 16,796 farmers are far less than the targeted number of 71, 501 and this has been attributed to the delay of the rains and anticipation of the return of the fall army worm,” he revealed.

Touching on the recovery of old investment into the ‘planting for food and jobs’ programme, Mr Ennor hinted that so far, a total of GH¢ 6,528,128.99 has been received, while an amount of GH¢4,407,193.22 is yet to be collected as at May 2018.

In his view, it is good for the sustainability of the ‘planting for food and jobs’ and he expressed his optimism that the outstanding debts would be paid by farmers who still owe them.