The Sene West District office of the Department of Agriculture has held this year’s Research Extension Farmer Linkage Committee (RELC) session in Kwame Danso.
Opening the session, the District Director of Agriculture, Mr. Eric Kontomah, said the RELC referred to a group of stakeholders constituted at the district level to help identify constraints to farming, and ensure that research and extension activities were responsive to the demands of farmers and other agriculture value chain players.
He said the objective was to enable research activities, especially adaptive research, field days demonstrations, and training of both farmers and extension agents, to be based on issues identified during the district planning sessions.
He added that it was also aimed at ensuring that a review of progress made in previous sessions go to strengthen research and extension towards solving the problems faced by farmers while promoting proven technologies and best practices.
The meeting discussed key activities implemented to resolve problems identified last year and constraints for this year.
The current constraints were grouped under cereals and legumes, fruits and tree crops, roots and tubers, vegetables as well as poultry, livestock and aquaculture.
It also considered some cross-cutting issues affecting agriculture in the district including inadequate tractor services, financial constraints, bushfires, lack of a livestock markets, bad roads, inadequate accommodation for extension agents, and the high cost of veterinary drugs.
Participants drew a priority grid based on factors like the severity of constraint and its economic importance which will feed into an action plan for the year.
The plan which will serve as a blueprint for addressing the constraints identified will have proposed solutions grouped into extension, research and policy.
Participants numbering about 40 were drawn from farmers, traders, Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Health Service, National Disaster Management Committee, Department of Cooperatives, representatives of the agricultural sub-committee of the Assembly, staff of the Assembly and the Department of Agriculture.
