1.1 SOCIO-ECONOMIC BACKGROUND OF THE BONTANGA COMMUNITIES.

The Bontanga communities are located in the Tolon-Kumbungu District of Northern Region. The Bontanga community comprises Kumbungu, Kpalsogu, Zangbalin, Voggu Kushibo,Dalun and number of other smaller villages within the catchment area of the Bontanga Irrigation scheme. There are approximately 100 compounds or farming households, habitating 8-15 persons, in each village in the Bontanga area. The Bontanga Community comparatively, is much larger with 5-7 large villages with an average of 350-400 households. The population estimate is close to 3000.

Every household in these two communities is basically a farming family. The two major seasons here are the dry (November to April) and rainy (May to October).Farm holdings range from 1 to 5 hectares and all families have some livestock. Maize, sorghum,millet,yam and cassava are the major crops farmed under rain fed conditions and cash crops such as soya beans groundnuts and shea have in recent years gained increased prominence in the cropping systems of the communities.
Apart from the major pre- occupation as farmers each village has one or two persons engaged fully or seasonally in some other enterprise. There are for instance butchers, blacksmiths, carpenters and petty traders and fresh fish mongers. The dominant ethnic group is the Dagomba but migrant Fulanis are everywhere in northern Ghana. Small settlements (called Adayilli) of the Bator fisher folk are scattered everywhere there are large water bodies such as the Wala,Janga and Nasia rivers on the White Volta.

There are several annual festivals but the most prominent ones are the Fire (Bugum) and the Damba festivals. Well over 60% of the people are Moslem and Eid ul Fatir and Eid ul Adhar are important Islamic festivals marking the end of the Ramadan (months of fasting and of thanks giving/sacrifice respectively).

The Major public institutions within 50 km of the scheme area include the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), the Animal Research Institute (ARI) and the University for Development Studies (UDS). Other institutions are a Catholic Seminary, an Assemblies of God Seminary, the head quarters of the Ghana Danish Communities Development Project (GDCP) and offices of International NGOs such as World Vision and the IFDC. A branch of the Bonzali Rural Bank is operative at Kumbumgu while a local FM station at the GDCP called SIMLI Radio is of great service to the district and beyond.
Figure 1 below is a map of Northern Region of Ghana with the Tolon-Kumbungu District sandwiched in the centre close to the Savelugu-Nanton and the Tamale Municipal assemblies.

Figure 1 Tolon-Kumbubungu District In Central Northern Region Of Ghana


2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Water and cultivable land are key limiting resources around the world, particularly in drought-prone Northern Ghana. Studies conducted in recent years by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and others indicate that the main challenges confronting small to medium scale Irrigation Schemes in Ghana includes the following:
• Declining yields and quality of rice and other crops from year to year
• Soils, water bodies, fish and crop products produced and the environment in general in the projects catchment areas are becoming more and more polluted as a result of inappropriate and unsustainable use of agro-inputs such as fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides.
• Cotton or cocoa pesticides and cheap adulterated smuggled pesticides frequently find their way into the hands of unwary rice and vegetable farmers operating on these projects.
• Chemical fertilizers and pesticides for rice production are very expensive and out of the reach of majority of small scale farmers operating under these irrigation schemes.

Inadequate capacity development in proven agronomic technologies, and especially in sustainable organic/integrated farming alternatives, have frequently been cited as the underlying causes of the declining rice crop yields and productivity of these schemes and the increasing impoverishment of the farming communities operating under them.

One way to increase the productivity of land and water resources effectively is to integrate irrigation and aquaculture. Rice-fish farming is one example of integrated-irrigation aquaculture (IIA)-a strategy to increase agricultural productivity from every drop of water while improving the financial sustainability of investments in irrigation. Rice and fish are grown together either on the same plot or on adjacent plots and the by-products of one are used as inputs by the other.

2.1 PROJECT JUSTIFICATION

The rationale for the project is underlined below:

• Land use efficiency under the current single culture systems are reported to be low due to lack of diversification, excessive abuse of pesticides and other inappropriate farming practices – undermining the purpose for which small- to- medium scale Irrigation Projects, such as the BIP and the GIP were set up by Government
• Capacity building in integrating rice - fish farming would set the ideal environment and opportunity to empower many targeted farmers to master and utilize Integrated Pest and Disease Management (IPM) strategies for optimum and sustainable production of both commodities under environmentally friendly conditions.
• Incomes and livelihood from rice-fish farming can be increased several fold in comparison to farming rice alone because overall rice yields will increase, increased fish production will enrich family diets and cottage industries or SMEs in rice/fish processing can be grown and developed.

2.2 PROJECT GOAL AND OBJECTIVES

The main goal of the project:

To build the capacities of the communities in and around the Bontanga Irrigation Project (BIP) to phase out the application of POP chemicals and improve on their irrigated land use efficiency and productivity and through organic farming approaches that contribute to the minimization of the release of persistent organic pollutants (P.O.P.s) in their produces of fish, food crops and the environment.

To this purpose, the project would seek to empower the target communities to meet the following specific project objectives:

? Establish environmentally friendly and sustainable integrated poultry, rice-fish farming enterprises through the implementation of Integrated Pest and Disease (IPM) methods and techniques;
? Contribute to the improvement of land use efficiency & productivity by intensification and integration of appropriate Good Agricultural Practices (GAP);
? Facilitate the growth and development of sustainable production & processing SMEs and thus contribute to the reduction of rural poverty in the catchment area.

3.0 DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT RESULTS AND ACTIVITIES.

3.1 LOCATIONS OF PROJECT BENEFICIARIES

The Bontanga Irrigation Project has an developed irrigable area of 595 hectares Project is the largest irrigation scheme in the Northern Region of Ghana, developed in the mid - 1980s to promote intensive cultivation (in the rainy and dry seasons) of rice, upland crops such as soya beans and vegetables by small scale farmers from the catchment areas of these scheme – Bontanga area communities.

3.2 KEY PROJECT OUTPUTS

OUTPUT 1.
Sustainable integrated rice-poultry-fish farming enterprises established for 100 farmers including 20 women 5 from the Bontanga and Golinga Communities through IPM and SRI interventions

OUTPUT 2.
Land use efficiency and productivity improve by at least 30 % at the irrigated sites due to adoption of proven best bet farming methods of rice and fish and improved land & water management interventions – by the end of the second season of the project.

OUTPUT 3.
Sustainable production and processing capacities developed to advance the Value Chains of rice and fish (production, processing and marketing).

3.3 MAIN ACTIVITIES

The project would be implemented using sustainable and environmentally friendly best bet, proven technologies and strategies in rice crop and fish farming in integration – Integrated Crop, Pest and Disease Management (IPM) methods and principles. The focal activities of the project include:
? a base line survey, a needs assessment of the proposed project and the establishment of a work plan & rehabilitation potential fish ponds & the devastated landscape near the dam walls of the two irrigation schemes and establishment of demonstration rice-fish farms at the project sites,
? training programmes(Poultry..Rice-fish cultivation), based on the Farmer Field Schools (FFS) methods in Integrated Pest and Disease Management strategies, with the fundamental theme being Organic Farming and the reduction of the release of Persistent Organic Pollutants (P.O.P.s) in fish and other farm products and the environment & capacity building of registered trainees under the project in the development of Integrated Rural Cottage Industries and strong Commodity Value Chain Linkages around rice and fish and poultry products-rice and fish marketing study, operationalizing of market information, profiling of buyers and marketing organizations and facilitation of formation of processing groups.
? Organization of end – of – season/project workshops to discuss and evaluate the findings of the pilot project with the view of the possibilities of improvements, up scaling and replication & the production of manual on IPM for the Promotion of Sustainable Integrated rice – fish farming enterprises in and around irrigated project sites.