The Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition, GTLC, has carried out a field survey on the impact of some policies and programs rolled out by government over the last two years on small scale farmers and producers.
The survey, which focused on Planting for Food and Jobs, One-District-One-Factory, One-Village-One-Dam and One-District-One-Warehouse, was carried out in some selected districts of the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.
The aim was to find out gender responsiveness of these programmes to small scale farmers including men, women and the youth.
To this end, a community durbar has been organized by the Coalition, at Jana in the Nanton district of the Northern region to share the findings of the survey with the farmers and stakeholders and also collate their views towards the 2019 National Budget.
The survey was carried out under three key topics including awareness, considerations and benefits targeting rice farmers.
The research revealed that about 51 percent of residents of Jana were aware of the planting for food and jobs, 77 percent for one district one factory and 27 percent for One-Village-One Dam programmes.
Also, about ten persons with disabilities and about 20 women said though they had knowledge of the programs, they were not given special considerations before implementation.
The research also revealed that though majority of women were aware of the programs, men were benefiting more with regards to its implementation.
Some concerns raised by the farmers ranged from access to land, irrigating system, agric inputs, processing plants, machinery and agric extensions services.
The Policy Officer of GTLC, Emmanuel Wullingdool indicated that the concerns raised by the farmers were critical and needed to be conveyed to policy makers for consideration and subsequently incorporated in the national budget.
Mr. Wullingdool said the coalition will further engage appropriate stakeholders to come out with ideas to impress on government and policy makers to incorporate the concerns in the budget.
Story by Kantam Juicy kantam.juicy@yahoo.com
