Majority of farmers who farm closer to the White Volta in Pwalugu in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region have started harvesting their crops and relocating to higher grounds ahead of the annual Bagre Dam spillage on August 11, 2026.
SONABEL, operator of the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso on August 4, 2026 sent a signal to the Water Resources Commission in Ghana of the possible spillage of water from the dam.
A spillage of excess water according to SONABEL, will start on Tuesday August 11, 2026 from the downstream of the Bagre Dam.
For the past four decades, the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso spills excess water to protect the reservoir and prevents destruction associated with uncontrolled flood waters.
This spillage ritual has a negative impact downstream through Ghana’s water resources especially the White and Black Voltas in Talensi and Bawku West Districts respectively, thus increases the water levels of the rivers resulting in flooding affecting farms, households, animals and physical infrastructure.
One of the affected water bodies is the White Volta where thousands of farmers are farming along the river for food security and the water from Bagre Dam destroys their farms each year.
Ahead of this year’s spillage, the farmers in Pwalugu have already started harvesting the little mature crops to avoid total loss.
The chairman of Pwalugu farmers Association, who have been farming along the river since 1981, Adawuni Aborah, has expressed worry about the flooding trends from the Bagre dam Spillage and calls on government to provide high performing pumping machines to reduce the impact of the spillage.
Adawuni Aborah said, due to the soil fertility along the river, they (Farmers) cannot abandon the area because they get a lot of yields and save cost of inputs like fertilizer and other agrochemicals.
The Talensi District NADMO Coordinator, Bismarck Farouk outlined the sensitization plan to prevent casualties and disaster when the water is spilled from the Bagre Dam
“Even before the letter from SONABEL on the spillage, we (NADMO) already rolled out sensitization and advocacy on different types of disaster, including flooding from the heavy rains and possible spillage of the Bagre Dam in flood prone communities in Talensi. So, the advocacy is still ongoing and as you (the reporter) are here at the farms to talk to the farmers to move to higher grounds for safety”, Bismarck Farouk stated.
Some of the farmers shared their frustrations and appealed for support to recover their cost and that the spillage from the Bagre Dam will adversely affect them because about 90% of their crops have not yet mature for harvesting.
More farmers are yet to visit their farms to salvage the little they can before the actual water from the Bagre Dam begin to flow into the white Volta in the coming days.
By Tanko Mohammed Rabiu
