The East Gonja District Assembly, has committed GH¢200.000 to upscale agricultural production in the area to help create jobs for the youth and improve the yield of farmers.

Mr Mohammed Aminu Luku Manu, District Chief Executive (DCE) who made this known said agriculture is a high priority of the District Assembly and would be pursued vigorously to ensure the eradication of hunger, disease and poverty.

The funds he said would be used to purchase farming equipment including tractors, ploughs, harrows as well as agro inputs to support farmers to produce quality crops and increase yield.

Mr Manu, who was speaking to Ghana News Agency in Salaga at the weekend, said five valleys in the district, including Makango, Kafaba and Kataya have been re-developed to be allocated to farmers.

“After the allocation to farmers, the assembly will cultivate rice on the remaining lands to generate income to support developmental activities in the district,” he said.

The DCE said rice harvesting remains a challenge in the area due to its labour intensive nature and called on development partners to support the district with harvesting equipment especially combine harvesters to encourage farmers to produce more of the crop.

Mr Manu gave the assurance that works on upgrading some major roads in the district especially the Makango-Salaga and Salaga-Bimbila roads would soon commence.

He said works on the Tamale-Salaga road had stalled due to funding challenges and as part of efforts to facilitate the movement of goods and people especially during food harvesting the assembly would soon start work on a portion of the road.

Mr Manu said through the support of the Canadian International Development Agency and the World Bank GH¢143,000 has been earmarked to improve sanitation and an additional GH¢1.2 million to address the water challenge in the district.

He expressed the hope that the perennial water challenge facing the district would soon be addressed.

Mr Manu appealed to the people to embrace the community total led sanitation approach aimed at reducing open defecation.

“We have established two sanitation markets, where various types of latrines have been showcased for people to select from. When a person chooses a particular style there is a team readily available to build the latrine in a week,” he said.