Executive Director of the Peasant Farmer Association of Ghana, Dr Charles Nyaaba says farmers were deceived by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) as far as some of the country's agricultural policies are concerned.

According to him, the governing NPP promised Ghanaians of the ‘One Village One Dam’ initiative and farmers across the country bought into the idea because they assumed that the facilities would provide water for their farms, especially in dry seasons.

Unfortunately for them, things did not turn out as they were promised as implementation of the project was poor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTOR-PRdiE

“So for us, we think farmers were deceived. We were all made to believe that access to water for dry season farming was going to be a thing of the past which we bought into and voted NPP into power.”

“But then when it came to the implementation, we realized that all that they promised us never worked,” he lamented on Monday, July 17.

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Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Dr. Nyaaba recounted that the authorities further promised that the poorly constructed and incomplete dams were going to be fixed and completed but nothing was done.

“During our engagements, we were further promised that those dams that were not properly constructed and those that were incomplete were going to be completed.”

“We have been following the budget for a long time and since 2019 till date there hasn’t been any money allocated for reconstruction of those dams,” he said.

It comes on the back of a two-part Hotline Documentary titled ‘Thirsty Dams’, by JoyNews Features Editor, Joojo Cobbinah which shows farmers pleading with government to compel contractors to return to the sites and do a better job.

Dr Nyaaba indicated that this has greatly affected the farmers and the prices of farm produce this year.

He added that farmlands were dug out in the name of dams and farmers abandoned their activities with the hopes of getting these dams as a means of irrigation for dry season farming but all were to no avail.

This he said has negatively impacted the farmers and their activities.

“If you observed, prices of vegetables this year compared to previous years have actually escalated if you look at the recent Ghana Statistical Service Survey on Inflation for last month.”

“This is because, in most of the communities that we went, the farmers were rather complaining that their farmlands that they use to cultivate have been used to create a ‘dug out’, which is of no use.”

“They lodged their economic trees like shear nuts and other trees and they could not use the place to farm any longer.”

“So their expectation that they were going to do dry season farming, they abandoned their boreholes and other tools that they use to go and farm, hoping that they were going to use these dams never materialized, so most of them this year didn’t do anything,” he explained.