Browsing by Author "Abazaami, Joseph"

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    Wealth creation and poverty reduction through agricultural activities in the Bolgatanga District: the role of NGOS
    (2005-11-13) Abazaami, Joseph
    This study was geared primarily at examining the extent to which the agricultural development activities of IVIDEP (DDO) and TRAX contributed to wealth creation and poverty reduction in the Bolgatanga District. The research made use of basic PRA tools as well as the administration of semi-structured questionnaire to farmers under TRAX and IVIDEP as well as the staff of these respective organizations. Findings pointed to the fact that these activities indeed played a significant role in uplifting the living conditions of the people and decreasing their levels of deprivation and vulnerability. This is evidenced by significant increases in farm sizes and yields as a result of the appropriate farming techniques imparted to farmers through TRAX and IVIDEP. Generally, landholdings of fanners increased both at Pusu-Namongo and Zuarungu-Moshie, the average for the former was 1.2 hectares whereas that of the latter was 1.0 hectares. These improvements were accompanied by an average increase of yields per hectare of 1.45 and 1.25 bags respectively. These tremendous and sight striking improvements were largely witnessed as a result of the sustained efforts of TRAX and IVIDEP in the areas of stone bonding, establishment of bunds, ploughing along the contour, tie-ridging, non-burning of crop residue, and many other LEISA appropriate farming techniques. Food security ranked as the top-most problem facing most farm families, the field survey revealed that the hunger gap had been closed by 4 (four) months as a result of the construction of the dam at Pusu-Namoo. The farming season which is usually between mid April to October/November has now been extended by 4 months i.e. up to early March; this has therefore reduced the hunger gap from 6 months to only 2 months. Similarly, at Zuarungu-Moshie the hunger gap had been reduced from 5 to 3 months. Findings about the incomes of farmers under TRAX and IVIDEP support indicated that all the farmer were living above the minimum poverty line of US$ 155, average annual expenditures of farmers on selected items (see table 4.8) ranged from 3,360,000 Cedis to 14,500,000 Cedis for Pusu-Namongo farmers and 2,700,000 to 12,500,000 Cedis for Zuarungu-Moshie farmers. It is significant to observe here that; all the farmers were living above the mean annual household expenditure for the Upper East Region, which is 1,793,000 Cedis, and all these point to significant gains in poverty reduction in a region where 9 out of every 10 people are poor.