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Business News of Saturday, 4 October 2014

Source: GNA

Farmers advocate for Cattle Ranching Law

The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), has advocated for the passage of a Cattle Ranching Law to help check the destruction of farms by herds.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Bolgatanga on Thursday, Mr John Akaribo, Focal Person of the PFAG, expressed concern about the spate of cattle rustling and the destruction of farms by herds, particularly Fulani herdsmen, and said until Parliament passed a law to regulate the movement of cattle, the problem would persist.

“Scores of farmers who constantly experience the destruction of their farms by Fulani herdsmen are also withdrawing from farming.

All these will affect agriculture productivity if nothing concrete is done to reverse the trend,” he stressed.

Mr Akaribo mentioned the raping of innocent Ghanaian women on their farms by some recalcitrant Fulani herdsmen, and stressed the need for the regulation of the ECOWAS Protocol on free movement of animals.

He, therefore, urged Ghana to learn international best practices from neighbouring Burkina Faso and Mali, who had passed the Cattle Ranching Laws to protect farmers and properties.

He noted that as a result of the laws in those countries, the movement of animals had been regulated there, saying, herdsmen from those countries, therefore, took advantage of the weak laws in Ghana to move their cattle into the country on larger scale to feed on the country’s fodder.