Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Upper East Region is within the dry-season therefore requiring irrigation for
vegetable production.
Apart from tomato production, the Upper East Region and countries such as
Burkina Faso and Mali are the main sources of supply of onions for the
urban centres of Ghana.
Figure 7.3: a) Women from southern Ghana buying tomatoes from the
Upper East Region; b) Small reservoir with breached dam wall.
Challenges associated with Government-led Irrigation systems
For a very long time the government had been the main investor in irrigation
infrastructure in the study area. The management of these schemes are
centralised and managed by government agencies. While the demand for
vegetables increased, farmers had challenges with the use of some of these
government-led irrigation systems which affected their productivity. The
large-scale irrigation scheme had unresolved land-tenure problems which
denied local farmers access (Tate and Lyle, 1982). Also the rigid control of
irrigation water supply by the management of the large-reservoir irrigation
schemes did not necessarily conform to specific farmer demands.
Some of the small-reservoirs that had been developed had major
infrastructural problems and could not be used (see
Figure 7.4:
b). The
developed irrigable areas of some small reservoirs limited the addition of
more farmers who were willing to farm. The best that Water User
Associations could do was to reduce farm plots of existing farms to
accommodate new ones.
This led to farmers seeking for alternative irrigation systems where they
could gain and maintain control over the water resource and also develop
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