Mark in Ghana: Developing Farmers

Working as a professional fellow for Engineers Without Borders Canada has allowed me to join the team of the District Agricultural Development Unit (DADU) in Saboba. This is a decentralized body that delivers programs on behalf of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, a federal ministry, which EWB has been working with for the past several years. It is working with the employees at the DADU in Saboba that I get to go out and meet farmer groups in villages and observe the delivery of the Agriculture As A Business Program workshops, of which there are 10. Below are some photos of the people I get to interact with in my work.

Mr. Alidu Alhassan - District Director of Agriculture (Manager/Boss)

Mr. Alhassan is from Tamale and has been director of the DADU in Saboba since January of this year. I have been working closely with him to come up with some management changes within the office to ensure the smoother operation and delivery of ministry programs.

Mr. Abdulai Musah - District Agricultural Officer -Extension Coordinator

Mr. Musah has been appointed the coordinator of the Engineers Without Borders designed Agriculture As A Business program. I spend a lot of my time supporting him to ensure he has the resources and the knowledge to support his staff and ensure the agents are able to get out to the field and deliver the workshops to farmer groups. In this photo Mr. Musah is working on plotting the progress of farmer groups involved in the program and being delivered by the District Agricultural Officers.

Mr. E. A. Syme - District Agricultural Officer - Crops

Mr. Syme has been primarily working on the Ministries Block Farm program, which aims to organize farmers into continuous large plots of land where cash crop monocropping can be carried out. Since I have joined the team, he has started delivering the Agric. As A Business program to the Timuun farmer group in Dicheeni. He believes building strong farmer groups is critical to ensuring the successful delivery of ministry programs in the future.

Mr. P.M. Grundow - District Agricultural officer - Animal Production Development

Mr. Grundow is currently delivering the ministries Livestock Development Program, which loans livestock to farmers to teach them current animal husbandry practices and allows them to increase their stock. Since I have joined the office, Mr. Grundow has started 2 farmer groups in the Yankazia community; the M-Moadah farmers group and the Ti Goup M-Puan farmers group (which translated to english means "to hold together firmly"). The Ti Goup M-Puan group is pictured below:

Mr. Eric Kunzari (left) and Mr. Simon Tabalibe (Right) - Agricultural Extension Agents. Both hail from Saboba, and are currently delivering the Agriculture as a business program to a number of groups. These are pictured below the picture of the two of them.

Nilimorcha women farmers group

Tignarn farmers group:

Intak Papoah farmers group:

Wumbeijou farmers group:

the following staff photos will be added shortly:

Mr. Dubik Emmanuel - District Agricultural Officer - Women In Agricultural Development (no photo at this time)

Mr. Cosmos Nyar - Management Information Systems Officer (Information Technology)

I work with Cosmos to ensure program information is entered into the computer database and that monthly, quarterly and yearly reports are completed and sent off.

Mr. Tahiru Mahammed - Accountant