Rural areas need agro extension services for growth: Simon

EXTENSION services in agriculture into rural areas are needed to support local farmers to encourage them to be more involved in cash cropping, Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL) Minister John Simon says.
Simon said this was why the country needed more than 400 agriculture extension officers to support farmers nationwide who were involved in cash crops such as cocoa, coffee and spices.
“Many farmers are trying their best to sustain their farms and to keep them going but they are faced with mounting challenges from pests to field management, harvesting and treatment,” he said.
“When these farmers struggle alone without expert advice, they will give up and move on to something else.
“This affects production that we have over the years with cocoa and coffee as well as others.”
Simon said the industry could only grow and boost the economy if DAL helped through doing extension service work with farmers.
He said he had encouraged Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) and Cocoa Board to put more money into extension services for farmers in the country.
“Go out to farmers in the rural areas and establish why they have abandoned coffee and cocoa plantations so that you can see the real problems and solve them,” Simon said.
He said CIC and Cocoa Board officers needed to be more effective. “Get more extension officers out to districts and local level government areas where the farmers are and help them so that more is produced to supply the markets overseas.”
Simon said there used to be significant work done by extension officers but their input and numbers and lessen over the last two decades.