A programme to support some 10,000 farmers to cultivate sorghum in the Northern, Upper East, Upper West,  and parts of the Brong Ahafo Regions,  has been launched in Tamale with a call on farmers to take advantage of the programme to improve their lives.

The Sorghum Value Chain Development Project (VSP) is being undertaken by Concern Universal (CU), an international development and emergency relief organisation operating in the country, in partnership with AGRA, to support farmers in the production of the cereal, which would be sold to Guinness Ghana Brewery Limited (GGBL).

Launching the project  in Tamale last Thursday, Mrs Juliet Lampoh, Country Director of   CU said it was working with various partners to fight poverty and that the sorghum cultivation was one of its support to farmers to help address poverty and malnutrition.

She said every year some 1.5 million people living in poverty in some 12 countries were improving their quality of life through CU’s work, and that her outfit would continue to work together with people living in poverty to enable them improve their living conditions.

She said CU was also working in other areas, helping to improve food security and sustainable livelihoods through agricultural development, nurturing natural resources, an enabling access to markets and micro-finance.

Mr Lampoh advised beneficiary farmers to take advantage of the CU/AGRA sorghum cultivation project, to better their living conditions, and gave the assurance that there was ready market for their produce.

She said CU would continue to address food security, climate change and environment issues among women and other vulnerable groups in deprived districts in the Volta, Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

Mr Stephen Mwinkaara, a representative of GGBL, assured farmers of ready market and that the total production of sorghum in the country fell short of what the company needed so as not to import barley and other cereals for brewing.

He said Guinness Ghana would continue to partner with CU/AGRA to purchase cereals as a way of ensuring that farmers’ produce did not glut, and advised the farmers to produce more sorghum since there was a ready market for their produce.

Mr Samuel Sey, a representative of AGRA-Ghana, said though there had been a substantial decline in the incidence of poverty in Ghana, poverty was still pervasive in the north due to food insecurity and stressed the importance of AGRA’s focus in empowering farmers.

He said the sorghum Value chain had significant potential for poverty reduction, food security and local economic development in the north, and that AGRA was working in partnership with CU to help farmers cultivate more than 275,000 hectares of farm land of sorghum.

GNA