Tamale Metro celebrates Farmers' Day

Zuo (NR), Dec. 2, GNA - Mr. Kwamena Ato Akorful, Tamale Metropolitan Director of Food and Agriculture, has appealed to livestock farmers in the metropolis to adopt a modern way of keeping their animals so as to get Tamale rid of stray animals.

He said Tamale was loosing its metropolitan status with the presence of stray animals such as goats, sheep and cattle that were causing vehicular accidents.

Mr. Akorful was speaking at a durbar to mark the Metropolitan Farmers' Day at Zuo a farming community near Tamale. Some 32 individuals including a physically challenged person were presented with awards.

They got cutlasses, wax prints, sewing machines and bicycles with Mr. Mahamadu Dauda from Lahagu going away with the ultimate best Metropolitan Farmer of the year.

Mr. Akorful said it was necessary to confine all domestic animals and take proper care of them to ensure that they were healthy. He described farming in the metropolis in recent times as a success story while calling on the youth to venture into farming instead of migrating to the cities for nonexistent jobs.

Mr. Akorful said he was not happy with the unhygienic and traditional way butchers were slaughtering animals and cautioned that the metro veterinary officers would deal with offenders. Mr. Mohammed Amin Adam, the Tamale Metro Chief, said said about 147 hectares of land had been put under cultivation of maize and soybeans at Walewale in the West Mamprusi District and other communities as part of the Youth Employment Programme. Some 135 farmers were also supported with farm inputs to cultivate any crop of their choice.

Mr. Henry Akanko, President of the Northern Region Poultry Farmers Association (PFA) who chaired the function, called on farmers to take advantage of the availability of land in the region and adopt the shifting cultivation system to improve production. Mr. Akanko was also adjudged the best poultry farmer in the metropolis.