World Vision Ghana has launched a farmer-managed natural regeneration project in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region to reclaim degraded lands and build resilience to climate extremes.
Under the five-year project, small holder farmers in 35 beneficiary communities will be supported to prune and manage shrubs to become trees thus helping to combat the dire impact of climate change in the district.
Speaking to Citi News at a stakeholder engagement in Sirigu, World Vision FMNR project manager, Mr. Samuel Abasiba expressed worry at the rate of desertification in the district and was thus optimistic that the FMNR initiative will salvage the dire consequences of land degradation in the area.
“The FMNR for Sustainable Economic and Empowerment and Development (SEED) project is going to help improve the environment by ensuring that, we increase the number of trees in the district. The project is going to concentrate on the pruning and management of tree stumps and shrubs in the district to grow to become trees. We will also engage in enrichment planting using the institute method to grow natural together with the shrubs and within the next few years we will have a change in the land scape”.
Mr. Abasiba stated that, beneficiary communities will benefit from Bee keeping while small holder farmers will be given small ruminants to increase their incomes and livelihood.
He added that, the best agronomy practices will be introduced in the communities to improve soil fertility for bumper harvest.
Mr. Abasiba, urged the adaptation of farmer-managed natural regeneration over tree planting as the best approach to restoring degraded lands.
He said, it cost more to grow trees than to prune shrubs to become trees and thus more efforts should be directed at supporting communities to embrace the FMNR practices to address climate change issues.
Among the key stakeholders were the Forestry Commission, Agric directorate, traditional rulers and assembly members.