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AGRICULTURE

Ningo-Prampram District Assembly distributes 10,000 Mango seedlings

The Ningo-Prampram District Assembly (NiPDA) has distributed 10,000 mango seedlings to farmers in the district under the “planting for export and rural development” programme.

Date Created : 9/22/2022 12:00:00 AM : Story Author : Ghanadistricts.com

At a presentation ceremony, held on Monday 12th September 2022 at the Dawhenya Irrigation Farm, the District Chief Executive, Al-Latiff Tetteh Amanor assured the farmers of his support to make sure the program is successful.

He also professes his love for Agriculture that every district he goes, the Agric office is his first place of visit.

Coincidentally, after he took office in the district, his first official programme he chaired was the National farmers Day.

Sharing his personal experience, he said somewhere in 2008 he conducted research on how to use Agriculture to alleviate poverty from the district, therefore he brought some investors with the knowledge in soil technology.

The soil in the district was later tested and was good for planting groundnut.

He then travelled to the Upper West Region with investors, and brought two articulators of groundnut seedlings and twenty (20) tractors. They later distributed them to farmers within the district free of charge and tractors allocated 10 tractors to Dawa, 5 tractors to Prampram and 5 tractors to Ningo.

The idea was to alleviate poverty, unfortunately, it did not end up well, and the program was later abandoned, according to him, that did not discourage him from his personal interest he has in agriculture.

In concluding his speech, the District Chief Executive pleaded with the farmers to listen to instructions that would be given to them from the District Agricultural Office and abide by them, so that they could also benefit from the program.

He said if the seedlings were well taken care of their generations would come and enjoy the benefits, he assured the farmers that the district will support every group to make sure it yields the necessary results.

He encouraged the farmers to give frequent updates to the Agricultural office on the progress of the seedlings at every stage and also promised to visit the farmers once in a while to have a public forum.

The District Director of Agriculture, Mr. Prince Ofori Boateng told the farmers that, the program is also to enhance the Government’s One District One Factory initiative, to set the background for private sector investment.

He said the total number of seedlings they were expecting was 30,000 mango seedlings and 10,000 coconut seedlings but as he spoke only 10,000 mango seedlings were available on the day for distribution because of storage facility challenges, he said the next badge would be available once they were done distributing the 10,000 mango seedlings.

The first phase of distribution was done in the year 2020 where the district received 2,500 mango seedlings and 1,000 coconut seedlings and because of the level of patronage the Ministry through the Government decided to reward the district with more seedlings to support government program of Planting for Export and Rural Development.

He said the farmers were selected based on their willingness, availability of land and source of water. Each farmer will receive 60 seedlings and the number will increase depending on their capacity.

He told the farmers that inspections will be carried out frequently to see the progress of work and government will help them with buyers and investors.

He concluded his speech by assuring the farmers of the necessary support, adding that his office is open to any farmer or groups with issues during this programme.

The distribution was jointly facilitated by the management of the Assembly and the District Agricultural office.