Browsing: Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto

Ghana allocates US$105 million to rehabilitate irrigation schemes. www.theexchange.africa

Ghana goes big on irrigation schemes, allocates US$105 million

Agribusiness

There are twenty-two irrigations projects under GIDA, covering 6,505 hectares. Additionally, there are twenty-two schemes constructed under the Small Scale Irrigation Development Project (SSIDP) and six schemes under the (Small Farms Irrigation Project) SFIP.

The SSIDP and the SFIP projects are all less than 1,000 hectares in size, except for the Tono and Kpong Irrigation Projects, which have about 2,500 hectares and are overdeveloped.

The primary beneficiaries of the irrigation projects have been indigenous small-scale farmers. However, the outputs have not been very encouraging, and the lack of maintenance of the projects has rendered most of the schemes unproductive.

Moreover, 14 companies have been enlisted and have taken up more than 3,000 hectares of land to cultivate commercial farming operations.…