The Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, John Dumelo, has disclosed that the Government has distributed more than a thousand water pumps seized from illegal mining operators to farmers across the country to support irrigation farming.
He said the initiative formed part of the Government’s short-term interventions aimed at enhancing irrigation and increasing food production.
Mr Dumelo explained that the pumps, which were confiscated during operations against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, were being redirected to farmers who required irrigation equipment to sustain year-round farming.
“With the irrigation, in the short term, the galamsey pumps that we have seized, we have distributed over a thousand pumps to farmers across the country to be able to irrigate their farms,” he told the media during a discussion on Ghana’s food sovereignty, 69 years after independence.
Mr Dumelo noted that although the redistribution offered an immediate solution to irrigation challenges, the Government was also implementing medium- and long-term strategies to strengthen irrigation infrastructure nationwide.
“In the medium and long term, that is when we are developing the Kpong Left Bank Irrigation Project; these are huge irrigation schemes that might take a little time to fully complete and function,” he said.
He emphasised that the intervention reflected the Government’s broader commitment to improving agricultural productivity and addressing constraints affecting farmers across the country.
