Flooding in the Upper East, North-East and Northern Regions will only affect food supply at the local level but not the national level, according to ESOKO, an agriculture-focused technology firm.
Content Manager for Esoko Ghana, Francis Danso Adjei, who disclosed this to the B&FT said destruction of the farmlands in those communities might not have any effect in overall pricing of the crops, but will have some effect on the local crops where the farms have been affected.
In the month of September and October, he said: “We should not expect that prices of commodities will change even though the unfortunate incident has happened. It might not affect prices of commodities on the market”.
He noted that the land topography in the northern part of the country is low; and hence anytime there is rainfall or spillage from the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso, it affects those along the Volta River.
“The dam’s spillage and torrential rainfall most often destroy a lot of farms that serve as the source of livelihood for the people. This period is when a lot of crops grown are ready to be harvested. It is quite unfortunate that this can have an effect on the local economy if not managed very well,” he said.
According to him, it is about time government and other stakeholders found a way to redirect some of the water that comes from the spillage, in order to avoid the annual destruction of property: “As a country, we need to help address the perennial flood issues that have been affecting food crops, lives and properties”.
He further stressed the need to invest in construction of a drainage system and dam to store most of the water during the raining season or spillage for irrigational farming to boost crop production.
For the past 19 years, effects of the Bagre water spillage have remained unchanged. The spillage continues to cause massive floods in communities of the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions of Ghana – leading to devastating impacts such as loss of human lives and livelihoods.
The management of Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso every year open the dam to spill excess water when it is full. This is mostly done in consultation with the nearby country to take precautionary measures so as to avoid any havoc.
