Story; Zakaria Abdul Hakim Cisse || Sanatu Zambang SDGs Live Report
In this current generation, the increase in population has led to high demand for humans needs to meet the exponential growth rate. The increased demand for the basic needs of humans has paved the way for industrialization to steal the day. While industries have immensely contributed to meeting the demand of humans, they have always left behind a trail for future risks posed to humans, animals, and the environment.
Almost every day, new technologies have been developed to solve the world’s problems in diverse fields. For instance in the industries, large amounts of nuclear energy have been consumed daily to manufacture products. In agriculture, numerous solutions have been provided including weedicides, pesticides, and improved crop varieties, etc., to solve pests and parasites, crop yield, weeds, and other abiotic stress attributed to crop production.
Women in politics; under the local governance level
” A lot of these things are influenced by religion and culture, so we see the man as the head of the family, so all the decisions are made by the man, even basically what to eat at home. So it puts her at a position where she will always have to ask for permission before she can do things.
If she decides that she is going up for a leadership position, she will have to seek permission from the man, which is fair because they are partners, but if his understanding of her position under powers him or becomes a threat then……..” Tua Fouzia Alhassan
While these may have helped the world in so many ways, they have also exposed the planet to a wide range of global crises including climate change (which has been at the peak for the last five years), environmental pollution, chronic diseases, etc.
In Karimenga, one person is revolutionizing agriculture. Even though Ibrahim has been farming since his youthful days and took over from his father in 2000, he finally established an organic farm in 2016. This was after a sought for land near the White Volta Lake that was on the uplands, such that it cannot be flooded during raining season. The farm supports dry season farming since it has an irrigation pump that supplies it water from the lake.
The 7acre farmland produces several vegetables and cereals all-year-round that feeds his family and some sold in the market. 2acres of the farmland is used for bee rearing. Amazingly, instead of pesticides, the farmer implores the technique of symbiosis, by rearing guinea fowls in the farm, who pick insects from crops as food while, controlling diseases. Manual labor is also used in weeds control using hoes.
According to Ibrahim Salifu, the hazards of chemicals and future impacts on the soil have made him reject all kinds of chemicals in his fields. He cited a year when pineapple in the Upper East Region did not meet international standard due to chemicals and where therefore unable to cross boundaries for the international trade market. He believes God has endowed mankind’s natural resources for a reason and hence, they should be used to solve human challenges.
Several agriculture companies such as Agriseed have provided Ibrahim with seeds to test for them and he has sometimes violated their practices handbook to use his green techniques to produce the crops which yield so much than expected, which wows the personnel. He hopes to make it a center in the future for learning.
Ibrahim has taken it upon himself to support his colleague farmers with advice and also ploughing their lands for them, even though most of them have refused to embrace organic farming.
He, however, revealed that despite the fact that, green farming is good as the world is now concern about what they eat and the potential contribution of eco-friendly agriculture to chronic disease suppression, the process is very tedious as it involves lots of labor.
Ibrahim, advised all farmers to keep up the amazing work as they are the nation builders. He, however, cautioned them to be cautious about what they produce and that the work should focus on going natural in recent times. He also revealed that the activities of farming is stressful and draining, the benefits are worth the struggle.
