The Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA) has revealed that developing an irrigation scheme for just one hectare of farmland now costs approximately $40,000.
The Acting CEO of GIDA, Ing. Richard Oppong-Boateng, made this known in an interview on Citi FM.
He said expanding and intensifying the development of irrigation systems is a more effective approach to combating the severe drought currently affecting northern Ghana.
Farmers across the five northern regions are struggling with the ongoing drought, which has been worsened by over two months of dry weather.
Ing. Oppong-Boateng also pointed out that, the existing irrigated land area is far from sufficient when compared to the total 1.9 million hectares of irrigable land available.
He further disclosed that GIDA is currently undertaking other initiatives in an attempt to increase Ghana’s irrigable land space.
“Per the decree, we are supposed to identify water resources in the country that are suitable for irrigation and we have done close to 19,000 hectares of irrigable land. We have 1.9 million hectares but if you add the private irrigation farms, now, we have done about 220,000 hectares which is a little of 12 percent of our potential of 1.9 million hectares.
“Since last year, there has been upscaling and as I speak now, we are rehabilitating some irrigation schemes and if you put all that we are doing this year, we are doing close to 5,000 hectares so if we keep up with this momentum, I am sure that we will be able to do about 700,000 hectares in the next 5 to 10 years.”
“It costs about $40,000 to irrigate a hectare of farmland,” Ing. Oppong-Boateng further stressed.
Source: Adomonline
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