News & Current Affairs
Excavators Clear Vea Irrigation Canals as Bolgatanga Farmers Prepare for Dry Season
Excavators are clearing silt from Vea Irrigation Scheme canals so water can reach about 2,000 dry-season farmers around Bolgatanga.
Work has begun to clear silt from canals that carry water from the Vea Dam to farms in the Bolgatanga Municipality, in a bid to restore supply to dry-season farmers under the Vea Irrigation Scheme, A1 Radio reports.
The exercise is being funded by the Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo, in partnership with the Irrigation Company of the Upper Region (ICOUR). Inspecting the work at Nyariga, Mr Adongo said three excavators were on site and efforts were under way to bring in a fourth.
Canals untouched since the 1960s and 1970s
According to the ICOUR Managing Director, Dr Dominic Anarigide, the canals have structural problems because they have not had a major rehabilitation since the dam and its irrigation network were built in the 1960s and 1970s. He said about 2,000 farmers rely on the scheme to grow rice and vegetables such as tomatoes and pepper, and that clearing the canals each year is necessary just to get water to the fields.
Mr Adongo said a planned rehabilitation of the Vea and Tono schemes under the World Bank-supported Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project did not go ahead after the funds were redirected in 2018 to the Planting for Food and Jobs programme. TheSavannaOnline could not independently confirm that account. Dr Anarigide said rehabilitation of the canals from Vea to Sumbrungu is now expected to be considered under the World Bank-funded Food Systems Resilience Programme (FSRP).
Seeds, tractors and water fees
The MP said he was also working with ICOUR to provide improved seed and fertiliser, and had arranged free tractor services for farmers in the area. He added that he had agreed with ICOUR to pay the water charges of farmers in the area himself.
Mr Adongo said the intervention was partly driven by concern over Ghana’s reliance on imported tomatoes, especially after Ghanaian tomato traders were attacked in Burkina Faso. Nyariga was once a major tomato-growing community, he said, but many farmers abandoned the crop because water supply had become unreliable.
Both men agreed that yearly desilting is only a stopgap. Mr Adongo urged the government to prioritise a full rehabilitation of the irrigation infrastructure.
The Vea Irrigation Scheme in the Bongo District is one of the two large public irrigation schemes in the Upper East Region managed by ICOUR, alongside Tono near Navrongo.
Source: A1 Radio — https://www.a1radioonline.com/84804/isaac-adongo-desilts-canals-to-restore-water-supply-to-dry-season-farmers-in-bolgatanga/index.html
