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AGRICULTURE

Farmers encouraged to practice budget planning

Farmers have been encouraged to practice budget planning for their farm businesses to enable them to have more accurate records to predict and protect their finances.

Date Created : 7/28/2023 : Story Author : Comfort Sena Fetrie-Akagbor/Ghanadistricts.com

Professor Osei-Agyeman Yeboah, Project Coordinator of North Carolina Agriculture and Technical University, who gave the encouragement, said it was important for farmers to take advantage of a new era of budgeting planning to enhance monitoring farm financial performance.

Professor Yeboah was speaking at a community engagement on the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Centre of Excellence for Global Food Security and Defence project held at Karaga District of the Northern Region.

The USDA-NIFA project is being implemented in collaboration with 1890 Land Grant Universities such as University of Maryland East Shore and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University.

The project, being implemented in Northern and Upper East Regions, is supported by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR – SARI) to reach communities with the best technologies to increase food security and nutrition in the country.

Professor Yeboah, who is also Director of Leonard Cohen Cooper Jr. International Trade Center, stated that a financial plan would also help identify what options were available to the farmers.

He said farming budgeting enabled the farmers to access loans from equity funding and also keep their farms from going into debt.

He said farm budgets assisted farmers to identify cost and income items that might otherwise be overlooked and identify funds left-over, which might be reinvested.

Professor Yeboah recommended farmers to practice accurate records keeping at any time of reconciliation, and said it helped them to report the correct amount of money spent or gained from the farm.

Dr. Issah Sugri, Senior Research Scientist at CSIR – SARI, said the project was to research for the development and extension model, which sought to implement a series of integrated interventions to propel sustainable and resilient crop-livestock productivity in the two regions.

He said the project was expected to improve nutrition, value chain enhancement and market accessibility for farmers in the northern sector.

He noted that there were a series of integrated production technologies in the communities to propel sustainable and resilient crop-livestock productivity to increase incomes, food and nutrition security in the country.

The Researcher indicated that one of the first steps in being a successful farm manager was keeping well-maintained, accurate records and establishing a sound record-keeping system. "Keeping accurate records has benefits such as helping farmers plan and complete realistic forecasting for the next year," he added.