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By Prince Agyapong
Onuku Besea (E/R), Aug. 25, GNA – The Legacy Crop Improvement Centre (LCIC), a private local seed company, has encouraged smallholder Ghanaian farmers to transition to commercial agriculture to enhance their livelihoods.
The company, which specialises in producing and marketing basic seeds, organised on-farm demonstrations at Onuku Besea, a thriving agricultural town in the Fanteakwa North District of the Eastern Region, for its high-quality and locally adaptive improved maize seed varieties.
It is the fourth time LCIC has hosted a maize variety show to illustrate the prospect of its products to stallholder farmers and raise awareness about its latest hybrid maize seeds.
The two improved maize seed varieties known as “Legacy 2” for the white type and “Legacy 26” for the yellow corn, are considered as “gamechangers” for Ghana and West Africa.
Dr Amos Rutherford Azinu, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of LCIC, told journalists that both new and improved varieties had the potential to yield between eight and nine tonnes per hectare, compared to past varieties.
He stressed that the improved seeds provided higher yields, resistance to disease and pests, adaptation to climate change, enhanced nutrition and had an extended shelf life.
He said if farmers embraced the variety and received the requisite support services, this could become a game changer for Ghana, helping mitigate food insecurity and significantly improving income levels of farmers.
“Compared to other varieties in the past, most of the old varieties have to mature between 120 to 130 days, but these legacy varieties take 85 to 90 days,” he added.
Farmers could do three productions in a single year and given satisfactory and suitable training, it would drive greater output and reduce Ghana’s reliance on western nations for maize supply, he stated.
“If we have 60 per cent of the world’s uncultivated arable land and we have 1.4 billion people and mouths to feed, I don’t understand why we should allow two countries, Russia and Ukraine, whose populations are not more than 200 million, to feed 1.4 billion people,” he said.
Dr Azinu emphasised that the small-holder farming system was not a viable solution to the problem of food shortages, hence urged government to increase investment for massive transition of small-scale agriculture into a commercial industry within the next five years.
This strategic approach was expected to result in a robust supply of high-quality food for the nation.
Mr Solomon Anani Attipoe, the Fanteakwa North District Director of Agriculture, said the two new varieties held great potential for raising maize production in the district, because they were local hybrids with high yielding prospects.
He said most farmers in the community grew open varieties like ‘Obaatanpa and Abontem,’ which had discouragingly low yields, causing farmers to abandon maize
cultivation owing to substantial losses and stated that the introduction of the improved varieties would revive maize production.
“When we look at the demonstration we have carried out, we realise that the yield is very good, which will help us produce lots of maize that will serve the country,” Mr Attipoe said.
One unique feature of the legacy maize varieties was their resistance to fall armyworm and required substantially less fertilizer, than the varieties presently used by farmers.
He advised farmers to avoid using chemicals to dry their seeds and instead adopt technologies that had been verified as safe to minimise potential health hazards.
Mr Adinkraba Apau, a 68-year-old veteran farmer since 1986 and a former Second-Best Farmer awardee of the Fanteakwa North District, was the first to plant the two legacy varieties and the old Abontem on different farmlands for demonstration.
He said when compared to the Abontem, the Legacy varieties generated far greater yields.
While applauding LCIC for the highly improved new maize seeds, he urged farmers to use legacy varieties to help improve productivity, returns and contribute to easing the grain shortages.
LCIC is a private seed business organisation and consulting company founded in 2015 in Legacy Square, Otareso, Ghana, within the Akuapem North Municipality of the Eastern Region, which specialises in producing hybrid commercial seeds such as maize, cowpeas, and soybeans.
GNA
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