Dry season onion farmers in the Upper East Region of Ghana have recorded significant increases in yield following the use of quality seed and the adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) in the 2014/2015 cropping season.
Under a sub-facilitation arrangement between Trias Ghana (an NGO working with onion farmers in the Upper East Region), Agriseed (local distributor of the French firm Technisem’s seeds) and YARA Ghana Ltd (distributors of plant nutrients) and the MADE Programme, over 1,000 onion farmers in the Bawku Municipal, Bawku West and Binduri districts of the Upper East Region were introduced to GAP between August and December, 2014.
Trias Ghana working in partnership with Agriculture Extension Agents of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture trained the farmers and held demonstrations on the application of GAP during the following management stages:
- nursery
- transplanting
- input application
- pre-harvest
- harvest
- post-harvest
Agriseed provided seed for the demonstrations while YARA provided plant nutrition.
The demonstrations which were held on the farms of lead farmers in the districts enabled farmers who participated in the demonstrations and those within neighboring communities to see the direct benefits of adopting GAP.
Farmers who adopted the good practices have reported significant increases in yield. According to Abudulai Yahaya, a lead onion farmer at Azum Sapelga, the adoption of a good practice such as planting in rows has helped to increase his yield. He said, in the 2013/2014 season, he harvested 75 bags of onion from his 0.5 acre farm. But in the 2014/2015 season, he has harvested 45 bags of onion from a 0.25 acre of land. If he had cultivated double the size of this land, that is, a 0.5 acre land, his expected yield would have been 90 bags. This makes it 0.5 bags more than the yield last year. Yahaya attributes this marked increase in onion harvested to the use of quality seed and the adoption of GAP.
George Azure, an Agriculture Extension Officer who was involved in the training of the farmers and in running the demonstrations, buttresses the importance of adopting GAP.
George says “the training in GAP has enabled the farmers to, for example, apply fertilizer better at intervals and in the right quantities.”
Dry season onion farmers in the Upper East Region of Ghana have recorded significant increases in yield following the use of quality seed and the adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) in the 2014/2015 cropping season.
