One key solution to the threat of worsening hunger in Africa is to increase investment in farmers. There, however, seems to be a worrying trend of high usage of agrochemicals in the rural districts. This can cause a lot of problems for farmers as their land can become infertile due to the damage caused by these chemicals. Efforts have to be made to save the new crop of farmers from practising some of these dangerous practises which are affecting arable lands in the country. Today, I tackle such problems head on and suggest new ways of farming that will benefit the best farmers on our soil.

Organic fertilisers

The key to ensuring food security in Ghana is to focus on the poor farmers in rural communities. In place of NPK and other harmful agrochemicals, there need to be a rising campaign on the use of organic fertilisers. This will not only heal the soil but also replenish it with the right amount of nutrients it need to yield good crops.

Best training techniques

In Ghana, women constitute about 52 per cent of the workforce in the agricultural sector. What then happens if they are not well equipped due to high illiteracy rates that limit their ability to adopt best farming practises for improved crop yield? That is why there is the need for sensitisation and training of farmers from time to time to help them know which improved methods to use on their farms for the best results.

Irrigation methods

In recent times, the performance in the agricultural sector has been poor in terms of annual growth rate. The water for farming cash crops has been polluted by galamsey and the rains are not pouring like they used to. This has led farmers to find other means of irrigation which is costly to their smallholder agribusiness. To help expand these farms, there need to be efforts by government and stakeholders to help connect water pumps, boreholes and other irrigation systems into farming communities to better aid their daily activities.

Equipments and machinery

For many farmers, getting the resources to pay for tractors to plough their lands is a major challenge. Credit unions and banks are not willing to give out loans and they sometimes have to form their own unions to contribute to get access to finance. The implications are that this may lead to high food insecurity in the rural communities, which by far extends to the whole country. To avoid future economic shocks, we need to award best farm practises by providing farmers with the right machines and equipment, which will help make their work very efficient.