Sorghum Farmers have been urged to unite into cooperative organizations so they can take advantage of the Guinness Ghana Breweries’ microcredit program (GGB).
In the Jirapa municipality in the Upper West Region, during the opening of a water project for the people of Sabule, the GGB’s managing director, Helene Weesie, provided the advice during a durbar of the chiefs and residents of the Sabule Traditional Area.
According to Ms Weesie, the corporation launched the micro-credit program as a strategy to entice young people into farming and so increase sorghum output and national economic growth.
More than 10,000 people are anticipated to profit from the two solar-powered mechanized boreholes that have been piped to stands in the farming community.
The GH1.3 million project was carried out in association with the international NGO WaterAid Ghana.
Rationale
The goal of the project, the first of its kind in the municipality, was to give back to the locals who serve as the primary suppliers of the sorghum used to make beverages, according to Ms Weesie.
She said that the company’s management realized that the people had trouble accessing potable water and that sanitation and hygiene concerns were also a problem as a result of its interaction with the people, which is why it made the intervention.
We think that stable access to sanitary facilities and clean drinking water is the cornerstone of strong and prosperous communities in all of the locations of our operations. We reaffirm our commitment to investing in additional communities in the regions where we source locally,” she continued.
In order to fulfil the company’s yearly sorghum requirement of 900,000 metric tonnes, she advised the people to keep working hard and enhance their production.
The initiative is important to the socio-economic growth of the region, according to WaterAid’s interim Country Director, Mr Jesse Danku.
He pleaded with the populace to maintain the building sustainably in order to increase its longevity.
Appreciation
The chief of Sabule, Naa Imoro Gariba, thanked the donors for the assistance, stating that for a long time, getting access to potable water had been the people’s major problem.
He urged the GGB to assist the people in their farming endeavours so they might produce more and improve their quality of life.
Naa Gariba claimed that their benefits were being undermined by the expense of land preparation and the rising cost of inputs.