Restoring the Land

                  

Our ultimate vision for the Adaklu farming community is that they WILL ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH FOOD for themselves and to sell to others.

To fulfill this goal, we

• Secure land for farmers
• Provide farming equipment
• Provide training and help with land preparation to harvesting, storing and marketing

What has been accomplished so far? We now have

• 6 tractors with harrows and ploughs
• 1 cultivator, 1 land leveller, 1 ridger
• 2 tractor pulled trailers, 1  4 row corn planter,
• 2 corn pickers and 1 corn Sheller 

We have also built a shop which contains some of the most necessary tools. We have bought 60 acres of land, developed 24 acres and planted pineapple, yam and corn. Five families have received two acre developed plots of land each. Tractor operators have been trained and are providing tractor services to 17 villages, mainly ploughing, corn shelling and trailer services. In 2010 they ploughed for 146 farmers, a total of 120 acres. Here you see that in average it is lest than an acre per farmer. We have also hired and trained a farm manager who is working on the ministry farm and advising the community farmers. And a 7 acre community farm has been established in the village of Sikama.  

      

The vision

 

Our vision for the farming project is to help free the land from ownership disputes, develop the land, divide it into 5 acre plots, and then make it available for individual farmers who want to farm. These farmers have to pay about 75% of the actual cost back to the ministry within 5 years. The money they would pay back could go right back into the farming project to help more farmers. Our area of focus is all around the Adaklu District, which has about 62 villages with hundreds of thousands of acres of very fertile land that is used mainly for cutting firewood, hunting and a few small farms. If Ghana would develop their land they would not only have enough food for their country, but would have much food to offer to other starving nations. Our goal is that they may always have food to eat, and make some money for hospital bills and help pay for their children’s education.    

  

Cutting firewood                                                                Tree planting

Here is what we presently need to further this project  

•  A bulldozer for land clearing and building dams for irrigation etc.  
• A farm truck
• Irrigation equipment
• Bush hog for 75 horse tractor
• Cultivators, spring tooth, pulled along harrow, grass cutter, 4 row corn planters, and a loader (for 55 horse John Deer tractors)
• Storage barns for produce

• Funding for developing the land and get the farmers established  

 

What about the forest?

Adaklu used to be a forest. Now they have what is called a bush land with elephant grass, shrubs and big stumps where the trees use to be. Any trees that grow are cut down for firewood. Our plan is to work with the “Ghana Government Reforestation” to preserve some areas and also plant trees where needed.

                        

                                     To see a picture (may take a few minutes to load) of our plans for the future click here.