Fertiliser Shortage Hits N. Region

The Northern Region has been hit with fertilizer shortage leaving farmers worried. A farmer at Kalariga, Saibu Abukari, told The Ghanaian Times that farmers in the area were finding it very difficult getting access to fertilizer for their crops. �In fact, it is very tough to get a single bag of any type of fertilizer, especially 15-15-15 compound fertilizer,� he said. He said the lack of fertilizer in the area could affect crop production as it was needed to enhance yield of most crops, especially maize. Abukari bewailed that the dealers were taking advantage of the situation to exploit farmers. Another farmer, Mallam Musah Mahammud, said many maize farmers in the region could be out of business if nothing was done urgently to address the shortage of the fertilisers in the area. He said but for the intervention of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), maize farmers would have stopped farming. He said it was that intervention by AGRA which was sustaining maize and rice farmers in the north. He thereby appealed to the government to, as a matter of urgency to increase the fertilizer supply to the region. Madam Mariama Alhassan, an agro-chemical dealer, said most dealers in the government subsidized fertilizer business had not been paid since the 2012 crop season. She said many of the agro-chemical and fertilizer dealers had vowed not to sell the government subsidised fertilizer until they were fully paid.