A popular commercial farmer in the Upper East Region who was 1st runner-up to the 2016 national best farmer has described as a deceit, government’s One Village One Dam initiative which was supposed to augment the existing insufficient irrigation dams in the northern part of the country.
The northern part of Ghana has only one rainfall season, which leaves most northern Ghanaian farmers idle during the dry season.
The One Village One Dam policy was an agricultural driven initiative by the New Patriotic Party with the intention of building dams for irrigation purposes and to promote dry season farming in the Northern part of Ghana.
However, the implementation of the policy was met with widespread condemnation by a large section of Ghanaians with many including Civil Society Organizations and Agriculturally based institutions describing it as a waste of public funds.
Speaking on Breakfast Today on Dreamz FM in Bolgatanga, the commercial farmer who doubles as an Assembly member for Sakpare Poyamire electoral area in the Binduri district Ariku Martin Akudugu said the whole initiative is a shame and that it breaks one’s heart to know that it was public funds were sunk into the project in such an appalling manner.
“If you go to see all those dams that they have constructed; not one that they (farmers) are using for dry season farming. In my electoral area, there is one at Poyamire community, the water is very small, I believe if three hundred cattle should go to drink from it, they will finish the water. In fact, it is a shame, seriously it is a shame that we have done this to ourselves as a country,” he said.
He continued: “I don’t know whether some people decided to distribute money in a way that they wanted to use it and call it One Village One Dam. It is a shame that we did that project, the number of dams that I have visited, not even one farmer is cropping there”.
