The Sustainable Soyabean Production in Northern Ghana (SSPiNG) project has significantly contributed to the increase in soyabean production in Ghana, as farmers under the project produced 61,878 metric tonnes of soyabeans during the farming season in 2022.
Professor Samuel Adjei-Nsiah, Coordinator of SSPiNG, revealed that some farmers were able to produce between 800kg to 1,200kg per acre, which is between eight to twelve bags per acre. He added that the majority of the farmers were getting an average of six bags per acre, which is a significant improvement from the previous production yield of three to four bags per acre.
According to Professor Adjei-Nsiah, activities implemented under the project in 2022 contributed to this success. The project facilitated public-private partnerships around capacity building, access to input and output markets, finances and mechanization. The project also built the capacity of aggregators, nucleus farmers, and some commercial farmers. Good agronomic practices were introduced to farmers, and training manuals were developed to train partner extension agents.
For the most part, the project improved the livelihoods of the farmers by increasing their profit margins. Early harvesters who were able to thresh and sell their grains got very good prices at GHc650 per 100 kg. The SSPiNG project seeks to sustainably increase the production of soyabean to meet the rising demand in the country, enabling rural households to raise their incomes and improve food security sustainably.
The project supported some nucleus farmers and aggregators to acquire 15 threshers to help in threshing soyabeans produced to ensure good quality grains and reduce the workload on women who typically do the manual threshing of soyabeans.
Dr Richard Asare, Country Representative of IITA – Ghana, said the project was on course and that they were going to break grounds for soyabean in the country. The project also had the support of Yara Ghana, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Wageningen University and Research, Felleskjøpet Rogaland Agder, and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.
In conclusion, the SSPiNG project has improved the yield of soyabeans in Northern Ghana, enabling farmers to increase their profit margins and livelihoods. The project has also facilitated public-private partnerships around capacity building, access to input and output markets, finances and mechanization, improving the knowledge and production of soyabeans in Ghana.