WUZDA Ghana has over the past eighteen months been supporting communities in the Tamale Metropolis and Sagnarigu and Savelugu Municipalities in the cultivation of vegetables.
This initiative, under the project; “Farm – Promoting Urban Organic Waste for Food and Livelihood Security (FaPUOWaFLiS)”, is aimed at helping improve the economic levels of residents in the beneficiary communities.
Libiga, Datoyili, Wovogu, Wovoguma, Duunyin and Manguli have had various supports ranging from land acquisition and ownership solely for the community for vegetable cultivation, installation of drip technology to help in water utilization, seeds support for nursing, training and education on various farming best practices and many more.
As part of the training given to the farmers, avenues for sales are made for them to be able to sell the vegetables, since marketing is one of the main challenges facing farmers especially in remote areas.
Every harvesting season, WUZDA Ghana’s Program and Marketing and Credit Officers visit the communities to assess the quantity of wares and to advise the farmers on what to do in terms of recording the sales they make.
A recent visit to the Wovoguma community showed the farm groups made a total sale of GH¢120.00 for the Bra leaves (Hibiscus).
For beans, they made a total sale of GH¢210.00 and GH¢100.00 total sale for cucumber. These sales were made from the individual farms on the field being managed by the group members.
In Duunyin, the individual farms on the field were washed away by rainwater, making it difficult for the farmers to harvest any of the okro they planted.
However, the group farm for the community survived, where the farmers were able to harvest some cucumber they planted, giving them total sales of GH¢ 135.50.
Both the individual and group farms in Libiga were healthy without signs of any pests or diseases on the crops, or any signs of flood causing destruction on the farm, according to the Marketing and Credit Officer.
The Libiga group farm gave the farmers a total sale of GH¢280.00, while the individual farms gave them a total sale of GH¢352.00, both realized from the ‘Ayoyo leaves’.
The field in Datoyili suffered some destruction as the Marketing and Credit Officer visited to ascertain the state of the farms and to track the sales of the vegetables in the community.
Some of the drip tapes were buried in a separate activity outside the farm, which resulted from one part of the farm fence coming down, making some of the planted cucumber in the field getting buried.
The farmers in the Datoyili community nonetheless made some sales from okro they planted at the beginning of the season, where they made total sales of GH¢352.00.
The okro and cucumber (Pointsett) crop varieties being cultivated by the farmers have harvesting periods of between 2 and 3 months, which gives the farmers a cycle of income generation from their all – year- round daily farming activities, including in the dry season.
From this, the next harvesting is expected to be in December, if planting on the fields in the communities take place in September, without major glitches and any setbacks during germination.
The “Farm – Promoting Urban Organic Waste for Food and Livelihood Security (FaPUOWaFLiS)” project, funded by Bread for the World in Germany, is entering its final quarter of implementation and the beneficiaries in the communities are excited about the intervention that has come to help alleviate poverty in their households.
WUZDA Ghana 