This year, the National Service Scheme (NSS) anticipates a record harvest from its farms around the country.
According to the scheme’s Executive Director, Osei Assibey Antwi, investments in the NSS agricultural program, along with favorable meteorological conditions, have made chances for a big harvest, particularly of maize, appear promising.
“Everything is going on well; we are doing three cropping cycles for maize this year, with a projected produce of 24,000 tonnes per cycle, so we project to produce 72,000 metric tonnes of maize this year, which will be a major leap from last year’s 5,000 tonnes,” he said.
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Mr Antwi stated this in an interview with the Daily Graphic last Friday while touring the scheme’s 140-acre maize farm at Branam in the Wenchi municipality in the Bono Region as part of his one-day working visit to the region, saying the harvest will be auctioned to generate cash for the NSS.
Other farms
The plan includes farming 5,000 acres of maize, as well as soya and rice, at the Kumawu Youth Farm, an agro-industrial zone, and there is a 150-acre maize farm in Ejura, Ashanti Region.
There is also a 500-acre maize farm in the Volta Region at Abutia Kpoeta, as well as 400-acre maize fields in the Savannah Region at Damongo and the Central Region at Komenda.
Land preparation was underway in the Ankaful and Gomoa Lome farms in the Central Region, Papao in the Greater Accra Region, Tantala-Yazebi in the Northern Region, and Anweabeng in the Eastern Region, according to Mr Antwi.
According to the executive director, because the Russia-Ukraine war caused a worldwide food and fertilizer crisis, the NSS opted to rely on the application of organic fertilizer, which has so far been successful.
Furthermore, he stated that for the first time in the program, a completely mechanized irrigation-supported project was taking place on the Kumawu farms, which was also integrated in such a way that nothing on the farm went to waste.
Mr Antwi stated that service members who finished their one-year required duty and training at the various farms and wanted to pursue agriculture as a profession would be provided the means to do so.
Collaboration
He also stated that the scheme is working with traditional authorities all around the nation to purchase more farmlands.
Organizations such as the MasterCard Foundation, according to Mr Antwi, have approved the NSS request to provide funds to promote the scheme’s farming goal.
He was accompanied by the scheme’s Bono, Bono East, and Ahafo Regional Director, Prince Kankam Boadu; the NSS’s Deputy Director, Kwaku Ohene Gyan; and the NSS’s Business Development Officer, Gabriel Osei.
SOURCE: GRAPHICONLINE
