Jirapa District — Near the Karni dam in the Jirapa District of the Upper West region of Ghana, a small agricultural development program demonstrates how a little assistance can leverage human potential.
Tiny plots growing vegetables are watered from shallow, hand-dug wells called “dugouts,” fed by a small rehabilitated old dam nearby that provides a little water during the long dry season.
Throughout the Upper West, Ifad (the International Fund for Agricultural Development) is involved in many projects watered with restored dams like this one, but what’s unusual here is that those farming the small plots are blind—almost all of them victims of the black flies that cause river blindness. They are members of the Karni Visually Impaired Association.
Today there are 20 persons working in the field here, most of them women. Watching them before they leave the main road to walk into the field, it is difficult to tell they are blind; and close up, difficult to see at first glance how they can weed, or know how and where to plant. No one is directing them. But Mary Piirigbee, an agricultural extension officer, explains that “they plant in lines. Whatever grows in between they know is a weed and pull it out.”
And if you’re blind, how do you tell beans from tomatoes or onions? Part of the answer is easy to understand, says Depaulo Severo, a trainer who describes himself as “one of the pioneers” of teaching Ghana’s blind to farm. “They feel them, he explains. The bean leaves have broad leaves and grow down. Onions are slender and are tall.”
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To space plants properly, the farmers use a knotted line. “They know the knots,” says Mary. “This plant according to this space on the line,” she explains.
They’ve been doing it here for five years; in other parts of the Upper West for more than 12. The gain is more than crops for the market because, in addition to markets, these people from the very poorest sectors of Ghanaian society also need acceptance; need to feel part of the larger society, says Depaulo.
“Society is a barrier because this person is a disabled person. If you break that [attitude] society will now see this person as a human being. Right now they are respected; nobody calls them disabled people because they are now able, [just] in a different way.”
As elsewhere across the Upper West, erratic rainfall, high temperatures and soil erosion keep crop production low. At one time about all that grew consistently successfully here were cow peas, millet, yam and cassava. But now more than that is grown now by these farmers—many of them women who are single mothers: pumpkin, onions, beans and tomatoes.
USAID contributes fertilizer, and there is major support from Ghana’s food and agriculture ministry, particularly through extension service personnel like Mary.
This one project hardly describes all of the Ifad-backed work in this extremely underdeveloped section of Ghana—and even Ifad’s own evaluation of its overall impact calls it “modest”
But importantly, the agency also concludes that “social protection” such as assistance to the blind, and often to single mothers as here in Karni, will continue to be “a major element” of its effort. What they are doing here is showing that this can be made to work.
