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General News of Tuesday, 23 August 2005

Source: GNA

Calls for food aid for three Northern Regions.

Bolgatanga (U/E), Aug. 23, GNA - An Opinion Leader in Bolgatanga, Ms. Hilda Salifu, has repeated the call on the government and NGOS to come to the aid of the citizens of the three Northern Regions, especially the Upper East, with more food aid.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga on Tuesday, Ms. Salifu who is also known as Madam Bolco, explained that the food aid consignment that was dispatched by the government to the Upper East Region a couple of months ago following an appeal by the Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) to the government, would not be sufficient for the people.

She noted that most of the people from the three Northern Regions had to vacate their households to the south to look for jobs in order to get food to feed their families.

Ms Salifu attributed this to the poor rainfall pattern in the regions, saying that most often, the crop yields were poor, thereby making it difficult for the people of the area who were mostly peasant farmers, to be able to feed their families.

" The early millet has already been harvested and the harvest is too poor to write home about," she stressed.

Ms Salifu impressed upon the government, NGOS and all stakeholders to come out to fashion a common strategy to combat the phenomenon of food shortage in the North once and for all.