The
management techniques for sheep and goat integration in crop production have
also impacted significantly in livestock production.
Researchers
introduced the farmers to improved crop varieties and exposed them to good
agronomic practices and “at the end of the day the improved agronomic practices
plus improved varieties led to as much as 200 percent yield increase”, says Dr.
Stephen Amoah of Ghana’s Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific
and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The
CSIR-CRI is coordinating the project dubbed ‘Sustainable Intensification of Integrated
Crop-Small Ruminant Production Systems in West Africa’. The two-year project,
implemented in Benin, Ghana, Mali and The Gambia, is sponsored by Australian
Aid (AusAID), with technical support from CORAF/WECARD.
Also
on the innovative platform are other actors in the agricultural value-chain,
including tractor operators, agro-input dealers and credit providers.
Rita
Narh, a beneficiary farmer in the Atebubu-Amantin Municipality of the Brong Ahafo
region, was introduced to higher yielding dual-purpose legumes for human consumption
as well as fodder for her livestock.
Today,
she is excited at the intervention as she harvests a bumper of maize.
“I
have realized that what the researchers introduced is beneficial and can help
me progress in my farming business. This [the improved variety] has helped me
gain much than previous harvest”, she said.
Project
Coordinator, Dr. Stella Ennin, is confident the project is key to increasing
food security whilst improving farmers’ income levels – mainly targeting women.
“We
are looking at legumes – cowpeas and groundnuts – as the main entry point to
improve the productivity of the crop-sheep and goat system and we believe that this
is a strategy that can quickly increase food security and also reduce poverty
among our farmers”, she stated.
Dr.
Ennin explains land resources are efficiently managed under the sustainable intensification
of crop production.
“We
look at integrated nutrient management and the integration involves the use of
manure from the animals to also supplement the chemical fertilizer and when you
have both the performance is better than either of them”, stated the Chief
Research Scientist.
The
farmers however complain the price of government’s subsidized fertilizer remain
high and beyond their reach.
Dr.
Ennin is hoping the challenge will be addressed for the farmers “to access the
quantities of fertilizer that they need to give them the optimum yields that we
are seeing today in our fields”.
The current phase of the integrated
crop-small ruminant production project ends in December 2013.
Project
coordinators anticipate a second phase for upscale across the country.
Story
by Kofi Adu Domfeh
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