Mr Fuseini Sheini, a farmer in Sagnarigu District has blamed poor agriculture development in the District to late arrival of farm inputs during farming seasons.

He said: ‘’Every year it appears the season comes by surprise to us and now that we have short rain fall patterns we need to sit up, am afraid.”

According to him if agriculture stakeholders like government, financial institutions, input dealers and farmers’ attitudes are not changed then the nation risk not to succeed and overcome it fight towards attaining food sufficiency.

He said that serious nations give priority to agriculture by planning well enough and execute the programmes in earnest especially when the climate threatens the survival of farmers.

Mr Sheini was speaking at a policy dialogue workshop for lead farmers in the Sagnarigu District on Tuesday.

He therefore suggested to government to institute farmers ‘seasonal hearings’ to prepare them for the farming seasons.

He expressed dissatisfaction about the lack of lands in the District for farming activities.

The workshop is an ongoing consultative process in some districts in Northern Region to assess the impact of government agriculture policies on the livelihood of smallholder farmers.

It was organised by SIFA Agro Trade Investment Company Limited and sponsored by USAID Agriculture Policy Support Programme.

About 30 leaders of smallholder farmers met and brainstormed on the impact of Food and Agriculture Sector Development Project (II) and Medium Term Agricultural Sector Investment Plan and seek the way to influence the next agriculture policy framework.

Mr Baba Sawhil, District Director of Agriculture observed that investment in agriculture is key to ending poverty considering the overall contribution of agriculture to GDP.

The workshop precedes a Community Agriculture Policy Fair to present the outcome of the consultative process to high level policy makers for action.