Council moves to resolve land tenure in northern region

Tamale (Northern Region), Jan '99 - The northern regional co-ordinating council (RCC) is to organise a forum for chiefs and other opinion leaders in communities on how to deal with the problems of land tenure in the region. Mr. San Nasamu Asabigi, deputy regional minister said the removal of the problems would pave the way for massive investment in food security which will help to improve on rural incomes. Addressing the opening of a review workshop on sustainable agricultural strategies. Mr Asabigi hoped the forum will help to place the RCC in a better position in the allocation of land for potential investors. The workshop is organised by the Dutch-based Linkages On Ecological Informed Agriculture (ileia), in collaboration with the Low External Input and Sustainable Agricultural (leisa) project in Ghana. The theme for the two-day workshop is, ''sustainable agriculture through farmer-led collaborative action research field results and sustaining the process''. The participants, made up of agricultural researchers and farmers, will deliberate on ''the role of livestock in soil fertility management'', 'farmer experiences' and 'initiatives in sustainable soild fertility management,' among others. Mr. Asabigi said a world bank report on adjustments in Africa indicated that agricultural production in Nigeria was ahead of Ghana because Nigeria's investment in research and extension services provided farmers with the technical know-how to improve small scale irrigation and soil fertility. He commended the organisers of the workshop for focussing on low external input and sustainable agriculture with emphasis on soil fertility improvement. Mr. Malex Alebikiya, country director of northern Ghana leisa, said the project which is being operated by the Northern Ghana church agriculture project is carrying out research into soil fertility management especially on compost and organic manure. He said the research being carried out in the project areas of Sandema, Langbinsi, Tamale and Garu is one area of re-examining indigenous farming techniques and making the farmer the centre of research to help boost agricultural production.