Ground Too Hard to Harvest Groundnuts, Beans

Sirigu, (UE) Oct. 13, GNA - Farmers in parts of the Upper East Region who had hoped that they could still harvest their remaining groundnuts and bambara beans after the devastating floods are near despair as the ground has become too hard to pull or dig out the nuts. "We have not had rains for the past two weeks and the soil is caked hard, because of the past flood, that it will be very difficult for those who still have groundnuts to be able to harvest anything", farmers in Sirigu, in the Kassena Nankana District said on Friday. The farmers who met to discuss their housing problems with a view to soliciting funds from a Dutch philanthropist, Rev. Fr. Frans Meddens said most of them would have to depend on food aid until the next farming season.

Mr. Alfred Apanga-Eta, a mason and farmer, speaking on behalf of the farmers said Fr. Maddens had helped the people a lot, with a housing programme that provided one or two rooms in over 35 houses with concrete reinforced foundations and aluminium roofing sheets. Those rooms, he said, provided shelter to the families when the other mudrooms in the houses collapsed during the flood. Mr. Apanga-Eta said plans were underway to provide more of such rooms to many other families in the community.