Bushfire sets another yam barn ablaze, farmers appeal for help

A destructive bushfire has razed down another yam barn at KpareKpare, a farming community in the Krachi East Municipality of the Oti Region, leaving farmers in the area counting their losses.

The deadly incident which happened on Monday, February 04, 2025, has brought the total number of yam barns destroyed by bush fires in the electoral area to five in recent weeks.

The latest fire outbreak has sparked widespread concerns among farmers in the area, who are appealing through the Ministry of Agriculture, government and other stakeholders to come to their aid.

Eric Akwasi Asumadu, a farmer who lost his entire yam stock to the fire, told the Ghana News Agency that, he finds it difficult to recover from this loss and appealed to the authorities to come to his aid.

Five farmers, Kwasia Anase Mensah, Tapo Nchaame, Adjei Yaw Agbeviako and others had been particularly hard hit by the fires.

Mensah’s entire yam barn was reduced to ashes on January 13, 2025, when a similar bush fire swept through the farm at KpareKpare, the fire destroyed his entire stock of yams leaving him with nothing.

Nchaame’s story was equally heartbreaking, he lost over 1,000 tubers of yam to a bush fire at Tapon-Akura earlier this year, the fire destroyed his entire stock leaving him with a huge financial loss.

For other farmers, the loss was not just financial but also emotional, because they had invested their time, sweat and resources into their farms only to witness them go up in flames.