The continuous release of surplus water from the Akosombo and Kpong Dams in the Eastern Region, which has persisted for weeks, has wreaked havoc by not only damaging infrastructure and displacing a large number of people but also ravaging vast areas of farmland and disrupting fishing activities.
In Asutuare, a community situated in the Shai Osudoku District of the Greater Accra Region, the floods have inundated extensive hectares of banana and rice farms, resulting in substantial crop losses that are unlikely to recover.
A visit by GhanaWeb to the community on October 17, 2023, to assess the scale of the devastation revealed that most of the food crops had been submerged. Farmers were anxiously awaiting the water to recede so they could prepare the land for new planting.
Many farmers, seen navigating their submerged fields, appeared visibly distressed and uncertain about how to provide for their families.
In Asutuare, about 450 rice farmers, who are part of the Kpong Irrigation Scheme, are grappling with the consequences of losing hundreds of hectares of their primary source of income.
The decision to release water from the Akosombo and Kpong dams a few weeks ago has left a trail of submerged farmlands overwhelmed by the vast volumes of water.
Charles Tetteh Hombey, Chairman of the Southern Low-Level Canal A Branch and General Secretary of the Water Users Association, described the destruction to the farms as “severe.”
“This is the biggest irrigation scheme in the country and we also produce two times in a year, so it also tells you the number of rice we push onto the Ghanaian market and so as a result of this, a whole lot of quantity of rice coming from our end would not hit the market as expected which is also going to have a food security crisis for our country”, he said.
Asked if the situation could increase the price of rice on the market, he answered: “It’s likely to have a food security impact and prices of rice would go higher because almost the inner valley along the Volta and then Kintampo, Brong-Ahafo areas who also produce the rice, you know some of these overflows also affected them.”
Impact of flooding on VREL banana farms:
Approximately 40 out of the total 120 hectares of farmland at one of Volta River Estates Limited’s (VREL) farms in Asutuare, including fruit-bearing crops ready for harvest, have been submerged due to the flood.
An additional 30 hectares are inaccessible because of the water situation.
According to Ebenezer Dotse Narobi Jnr, the Plantation Manager at VREL, the flooding occurred just two weeks after a substantial amount of fertilizer had been applied to the farms.
He explained that despite being aware of the impending dam spillage, the warning from the Volta River Authority (VRA) did not provide sufficient time to prepare for the full extent of the impact.
“We were told that they were going to open two or three spillways so the impact was not going to be huge only for us to come overnight and realize that all our pumps are flooded…since then we’ve not been able to pump water for the past three weeks”, he said.
Explaining the situation he said, “As we speak, for the past three weeks, close to 40 hectares of the entire plantation is underwater and then about 30 hectares are not accessible, so you can just imagine, close to about 70 hectares of the farm is not available to us now and it’s been the story for the past two weeks.”
With bananas unable to survive for more than 72 hours in water, the submerged farms valued at several millions of Cedis which have been affected for weeks now, though still standing, have been destroyed.
According to him, the destruction would take the company about a year to recover the lost plantation.
“If the banana is submerged, after 72 hours, there’s nothing you can do, they’re dead living plants…we only wait for the water to recede after two or three weeks, we go and cut everything down, allow the land to dry, then replant and that should take us close to a year to be able to recover that very land,” he explained.
Though the situation does not immediately call for lay-offs, he said such action could not immediately be ruled out.
He called for an improvement in the country’s early warning systems to avert situations as this to save lives and properties.