Vegetable crop production has been widely recognised as a profitable venture with the potential to create employment, increase income levels, improve livelihoods of families and significantly enhance nutrition.
Like other food crops, vegetable production is seasonal, with the rainy season experiencing excess supply and lower prices. In the dry season however, production reduces drastically, creating high demand and making dry season vegetable production an even more profitable venture.
The Northern Region, particularly the Tamale metropolitan area, has seen an upsurge in vegetable farming in recent years, becoming an important hub of vegetable production.
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in 2014 reported that, through irrigation, farmer’s per capita production as well as area under vegetable crop production in Tamale increased and smallholder farmers had surplus to sell.
During the dry season, vegetable farming is done around dams, wells, streams, dugouts and backyard gardens. These sources provide water for irrigation. Some farmers also rely on open gutters due to lack of reliable water supply for irrigation. Concerns have, however, being raised about possible health risk in consuming vegetables produced near these open gutters.
Wovoguma, a farming community in the Sagnarigu municipality, is noted for vegetable production. The community has over the years supplied the Tamale market with a variety of vegetables.
The community’s dam proved a reliable source of water for irrigation for many years. Done mostly by women, dry-season vegetable production has become a very important source of income for members of the community.
Arahanatu Mahama, leader of a women’s group of vegetable farmers at Wovoguma, said dry-season vegetable farming has empowered them economically and has enhanced the dignity and stability of their families.
“Since we started dry season vegetable farming, no girl from this community has travelled to Accra to engage in “kayayie” (head porting),” she stated.
She said proceeds from the business were used to train their girls in hairdressing and tailoring among other trades. They also support their children’s education and provide for the upkeep of their families. It also ensures that families have access to leafy vegetables throughout the year, contributing significantly to the nutritional needs of the people.
The group has received support from the Sagnarigu Municipal Directorate of Agriculture, and in 2024 they received grants to the tune of Gh¢3,700 each from the World Food Programme (WFP) to scale up production and boost their incomes.
The Sagnarigu Municipal Crops Officer, Mohammed Jibril, who doubles as the extension agriculture agent for Wovoguma and Taha, said the support was aimed at empowering the women economically.
The Municipal Agriculture Directorate, with support from WUZDA Ghana, supported the women with irrigation tools, solar panels, pumping machines and fence for the farm.
Jibril said the project over the years had significantly improved the living conditions of the women and the community at large.
This profitable venture is, however, under serious threat as a result of the siltation of the dam. The dam, which also serves as the only source of water for domestic use, has seen no dredging since its construction a little over two decades ago.
The Wovoguma dam was large and held a significant amount of water, enough to fill not only the cans of the people of Wovoguma and surrounding communities, but 27 other communities in the greater Tamale area. There was enough water to keep the seedlings alive and the land green against the harsh weather of the dry season.
But today the dam is a pale shadow of itself. Water tankers have been banned from accessing water from the dam as community leaders fear it may soon dry up completely. The water has receded rapidly, exposing cracked mud and has shrunk the dam to less than half its original size.
In 2023, community members contributed money to hire the services of an excavator to dredge the dam, but the amount of work their money could afford was just a drop in the ocean.
The people say they have since made several appeals to authorities to dredge the dam but those calls have yielded no results.
As a result of the poor state of the dam, the women are unable to cultivate vegetables this season in order to preserve the water for domestic use.
This piece of land, which otherwise would have been covered with green vegetation, lies bare and barren, the farmers looking hopeless and dejected.
“Our biggest challenge is the dam. It’s been more than 20 years since it was constructed and since then, it hasn’t been dredged. Now it is very shallow, and because the community members depend on it for domestic use, we have decided to put our vegetable farming on hold,” Arahanatu lamented.
The situation, she said, would drastically affect their incomes and livelihoods and would result in untold hardship in the community. She, therefore, appealed to the government to urgently intervene and dredge the dam to help sustain the dry-season vegetable production.
Alhassan Yabdoo, an opinion leader, said a lot more of the youth were eager to get into the dry-season vegetable farming but were not able to do so because of the poor state of the dam. He, therefore, appealed to the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale North, Alhassan Suhuyini, and the Sagnarigu Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Abdulai Imoro Gong, to come to their aid.
Jibril says the Municipal Agriculture Directorate has made several calls for the dredging of the dam and is hopeful that help may soon come.
“That particular dam doesn’t serve only Wovoguma, Wovogu and Gbirima. People from Taha, Fuo and all surrounding communities go there for water. It is serving a greater population around that enclave, so dredging it is a necessity. If we lose that dam, you can imagine the number of lives that will suffer. We’ve made several calls and we are hoping our calls will yield positive results,” he said.
Jibril wishes all 87 communities in the Sagnarigu Municipality had dams holding enough water during the dry season so the people could engage in dry-season vegetable farming. He believes increased vegetable production, particularly during the dry season, will not only empower communities economically, but will also create employment opportunities for the youth and women in the municipality.
The Assemblyman for the Taha/Wovoguma Electoral Area, Hudu Yabdoo, said he had raised the issue of the dam at the assembly level on several occasions but had not received any positive response.
For the women of Wovoguma, dry-season vegetable farming is not just a practice. It is a survival― and they cannot wait to have the dam return to its former glory.
Source: Yahaya Masahudu/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana/West Africa
