The Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF) has provided funds for the cultivation of over 5,000 acres of mango in the Brong Ahafo, Volta, Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions this year. This is to give meaning to the government’s plans to champion mango cultivation in the Savannah areas and other parts of the country as a mechanism to increase farmer incomes and combat rural poverty. Already, EDIF has invested over GH¢11.7 million in the project and its goal is to ensure that a total of 20,000 acres of mango plantations are cultivated by 2013. The Board Chairman of EDIF, Prof. Francis Dodoo, made this known at an interactive meeting with beneficiary farmers of the EDIF mango project. The meeting was organised to enable the board and management of the EDIF to have first-hand information on the requirements of the farmers involved in the project in order to address these needs and facilitate the execution of the project. Prof. Dodoo noted that the fund had engaged some consultants in June, 2011 to visit and inspect the progress of work on the various farms. “Based on the recommendations of the consultants appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that the fund gives you the necessary support to ensure the success of the project,” he stated. Prof. Dodoo said between 2009 and 2010, a total of 6,600 acres were cultivated and 39 farmers had been selected for the 2011 planting season. He said the EDIF was considering how it could extend further support to farmers who had established their farms during the 2009 and 2010 seasons, in order that the farms would be well maintained to flourish. The board chairman also noted that although the fund had no plans to acquire inputs for the farmers, it intended to ensure that the inputs acquired were standard. “We have started discussions about how we might facilitate this process by perhaps advertising and screening suppliers of inputs, so that we can make available to the farmers, the qualified suppliers list,” he said. Prof. Dodoo also cautioned the farmers not to listen to rum ours that sought to suggest that the board and the new management of the EDIF were not interested in the success of the project. “Nobody in the EDIF is interested in the failure of the project. For this project to succeed, we need to build trust between us,” he intimated. The farmers raised a number or' concerns, including difficulties in acquiring land, the cost of land preparation, the cost of engaging technical personnel and casual workers and the lack of irrigation facilities. A former Northern Regional Minster, Prince Imoro Andani, who is also a mango farmer, stressed the need to locate some of the mango farms closer to one another so they could source water from a single irrigation facility, thereby reducing cost. He said mango farming could become a very important source of revenue to farmers in northern Ghana if given the needed support.