Demonstration plots
Side-by-side plots run with farmer groups during student placements.
UDS Solutions
Climate-Smart Agriculture
Northern Ghana’s farming calendar was built around a rainy season that no longer behaves as it did. This work is about practices that still produce a harvest when it does not.
Northern Ghana’s farming calendar was built around a rainy season that no longer behaves as it did. This work is about practices that still produce a harvest when it does not.
The research covers drought-tolerant varieties, planting dates, soil moisture conservation, intercropping and dry-season gardening. What reaches communities is rarely a new seed on its own — it is a seed together with a changed planting date and a way of keeping water in the soil.
Findings travel through the field programmes. Students on placement run demonstration plots with farmer groups, and the comparison between the demonstration plot and the farmer’s own plot is usually more persuasive than any extension talk.
How it is used in communities
Dry-season gardening
Vegetable production in the months that used to be lost.
Planting-date advice
Guidance built from local rainfall records, not national averages.
What has changed
Yields that hold up
Farmer groups report harvests in seasons that would previously have failed.
Income outside the main season
Dry-season vegetables sold when prices are highest.
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