Professor Roger Kanton, a Research Scientist at the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has called on the government to prioritise the construction of a larger dam at Kubore in the North East region.
This dam would be designed to store the water spilled annually from the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso.
Prof. Kanton emphasized that building a dam along the Kubore River would ensure a reliable water supply to many communities in the Northeast and Upper East regions during the dry season.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Citi FM on Wednesday, Prof. Kanton urged stakeholders to consider adopting Israel’s water storage model to boost food production, rather than allowing the yearly destruction caused by the Bagre Dam’s spillage.
“Israel doesn’t have enough rainfall but they export the best vegetables to Europe and other countries and this is because they have aquifers to store water for their farming and so I don’t know why Burkina Faso throws all these waters at us and we allow them to cause destructions
“You can have the multipurpose dam at Pwalugu and also have a bigger dam at Kubore that will store water from the Bagre Dam. The Upper East region is great when it comes to managing water resources and investing in these things would have been a blessing to not just the region but the whole country.”
Responding to the cost involved in setting up irrigation schemes, which the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority disclosed that it currently costs about $40,000 to irrigate a hectare of farmland, Prof. Kanton intimated that that should not be a problem considering the numerous reckless expenditures of the government.
“The amount of money used on profligate stuff, using $40,000 to construct irrigation schemes is nothing but chicken change, as Kennedy Agyapong would say.”
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