Northern Ghana drought: $40,000 is needed to irrigate one hectare of agriculture, according to GIDA

 

Northern Ghana drought: $40,000 is needed to irrigate one hectare of agriculture, according to GIDA, According to information released by the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA), the cost of creating an irrigation plan for a hectare of farmland is now over $40,000.

Ing. Richard Oppong-Boateng, the acting CEO of GIDA, informed Bernard Avle, host of the Citi Breakfast Show, that investigating and carefully creating irrigation systems is a preferable course of action to lessen the severe drought that has affected some areas of northern Ghana.

Due to more than two months without rain, farmers in the five northern regions lament the effects of the prolonged drought today.

According to Ing. Oppong-Boateng, there are 1.9 hectares of irrigable land altogether, and the existing irrigated land area needs to be more robust.
He went on to say that GIDA is presently working on additional projects to expand Ghana's arable land area.

We have identified about 19,000 hectares of irrigable land nationwide, as required by the regulation, which calls for us to find appropriate water resources for irrigation. Our potential is 1.9 million hectares, but if you include the private irrigation farms, we have only completed around 220,000 hectares or roughly 12% of it.

"There has been an increase in scale since last year. As I speak, we are renovating some irrigation schemes. When you add all that we have done this year, we have completed nearly 5,000 hectares. If we maintain this pace, I am confident that we will be able to complete approximately 700,000 hectares in the next five to ten years."

Ing. Oppong-Boateng emphasized further that "irrigating a hectare of farmland costs about $40,000."