By: Oforiwa Darko
A five-day training of trainers’ workshop has been organized for female farmers in Afienya in the Ningo-Prampram District of the Greater Accra Region to help improve crop productivity and sustainable agriculture in Ghana.
The Trainers’ workshop was under the theme, “Ensuring Sustainable Agriculture Through Best Farm Practices”.
Organised by World Connect — a U.S.based non-profit organization in partnership with Afienya Women in farming Association, the workshop trained over 65 women on fertilizer components and its benefit to crop productivity, fertilizer application and micro-dosing, chemical application with special emphasis on PHI (Pre-Harvest Intervals) and business development.
According to the World Connect Established Field Partner for the Project in Ghana, Priscilla Adom Tawiah, the training was to offer the female farmers of Afienya and its environs hands-on practical knowledge on how to formalize their businesses, adopt value addition and marketing strategies in order to grow their companies.
“Most of the female farmers who are largely uneducated have little or no idea about the importance of the components to plant life, especially NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium). This is because they are entrenched in the old method of fertilizer application which is manual, costly, inefficient and has a lot of adverse health implications on the life of the farmers,” the Field Partner for the Project said.
Madam Priscilla Adom Tawiah said higher nitrogen concentration during crop production is the reason for the shorter shelf lives of most vegetables on the markets.
This, she said, is due to the lack of knowledge of some farmers.
“A little support in the form of simple mechanized equipment and education can go a long way to help them produce quality products, increase harvest, improve their businesses and ultimately their standard of living,” she said.
The District Chief Executive of Ningo-Prampram, Mr AL Lattif Tetteh Amanor commended the organizers of the workshop for being the first to introduce such a project to women farmers in the Ningo-Prampram District.
The women farmers were taken through interactive, practical and theoretical sessions. Each trainee of the Programme received a certificate and fertilizer applicator/micro-dosing equipment.
The five-day training of trainers’ workshop was funded by World Connect and executed in partnership with Afienya Women in Farming Association through its Established Field Partner; Priscilla Adom Tawiah and its Local Leader Mrs. Fatima Ali.
The project was supported by the Mandela Washington Fellows Association of Ghana, PEL’S Farm Group, Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the Ningo-Prampram District Assembly.
