Voices from the field: Yakubu Boadu, Ghana

In 1993, Yakubu Boadu was named Techiman District’s best farmer, but that doesn’t mean the 57-year-old doesn’t have something to learn.

Yakubu had been listening to Astor FM when he learned about using improved seeds from Farm Radio’s AgroTech project.

“I was informed by the radio that the seeds are high yielding and faster. I tried it small to see, and realized it was true,” he says.

That was last year. This year Yakubu used the seed on all five acres of his farm near Aworopata, in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. On top of this, Yakubu is implementing row planting and spacing on his land in combination with the improved seeds in order to get higher yields.

Thanks to radio, Yakubu says that he’s “become a farmer that other farmers listen to. They come and see my farm and implement what I am planting.”

The radio program that Yakubu listens to is made possible through USAID’s  New Alliance ICT Extension Challenge Fund. This project focuses on using a scalable, integrated suite of ICT-based services to cost-effectively drive behaviour change and help Ghanaian farmers increase their yields of six target crops (maize, rice, soybean, cassava, yam, and cowpeas), thereby improving food security. 

About the author  

Tara Sprickerhoff is a recent graduate of Carleton University’s Bachelor of Journalism program. She spent the summer of 2015 working in Accra, Ghana, as a journalism intern with Farm Radio International, and recently returned to continue on. Tara aspires to one day work in radio herself, as she is happiest when she is able to give others a voice to share their own stories and passions.