Ghana’s politician producing seeds for a changing climate

He is not new to farming having done it successfully all his life. At some point he went into politics, serving as a member of parliament for three terms under Ghana’s National Democratic Congress party.

Now he spends most of his time on his farm in Ejura Sekyere in Ghana’s Ashanti Region.

Unlike the majority of farmers across Ghana, Pangabu is a rich man. He has seven children and two wives. He has thousands of acres of land, six houses and cars. He attributes his wealth to farming and grabs every opportunity he has to urge people to go into farming.

His company Pee Farms begun twenty-five years ago on a small scale growing certified maize seeds. Before that he had less than 20 acres of land on which he cultivated maize.

Pangabu has successfully experimented with a new maize hybrid variety, which is better suited for Ghana’s changing climate.

“Because of the weather condition we have to change to hybrid. Because its hybrid the yield is more, it is a little drought resistant, disease resistant hybrid is the only way out we have try and drop the OPV to move to hybrids.

“For one-acre of OPV the highest you can get is 10 to 12 bags but the hybrid you can get about 18 to 20 bags.”

He received a grant of around 176 000USD for a three-year period from 2014 to 2017.

Since then, he has expanded his farms. In 2017 alone, he planted about 1500 acres of certified maize seeds. A feat he says is possible because of the AGRA grant he received under PASS.

Some of the money has been used to educate farmers on the new techniques in farming to make farmers increase yields. He is expanding this infrastructure and farm inputs as well. He has reached out to out-grower farmers who are on contract to produce more certified seeds.

Because of the support from AGRA, he sells his seeds at half the market price to farmers who plant for grains. This is to encourage the farmers to go for more improved seeds which will result in better yields, he says.

He says the expansion of infrastructure alone could never have happened without AGRA.

Though he is affiliated to the opposition party, Pangabu says the current government’s policy on Agriculture is better than his government’s.

By: Betty Kankam-Boadu