The African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), one of the players in the agri-industry is positioning itself to help end the level of misapplication and unsafe methods in the use of pesticides by farmers in the country.
This follows a number of concerns raised by actors within the agri-industry about the misapplication or misuses of pesticides and fertilizers in preparing our crops.
It is against this backdrop that Agro-chemical dealers in the Bono East region were selected to undergo three days of residential training in Techiman on good agro practices and how to offer advisory services to smallholder farmers in the country.
The Acting Country Manager, of African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership, Nana-Aisha Mohammed, was hopeful, the 3-day capacity building workshop would benefit multiple of smallholder farmers and the country at large.
According to the Manager, the training seeks to build the capacity of agro-input dealers in the Brong Ahafo Regions. This is expected to enable them to provide advisory services to smallholder farmers in order to improve soybean and maize productivity.
She said AFAP aims to empower and adds value to the fertilizer and agribusiness value chain by building the capacity and linking African Hub-Agro dealers and smallholder farmers to global fertilizer and food companies, balanced crop nutrition products, technology, financing, and equipment providers in Africa.
AFAP, through the funding of Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA), under Africa’s Smallholder Inclusive Productivity and Market Access (SIPMA) project are organizing a 3-day training program for agro-input dealers.
The training was organized by AFAP and in collaboration with Ghana Agri-Input Dealer Association (GAIDA), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), CABI, CropLife, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
The overall goal of the SIPMA project is to improve food security and livelihoods of 143,000 smallholder maize and soybean farmers in Northern and Brong Ahafo regions.
The project will support the development of the maize and soybean value chains including input mobilization, extension, and access to finance, crop protection, aggregation and value addition Brong Ahafo and Northern regions, she said.
