Technical school lecturers receive training in good agric practices
A five-day training programme on good agricultural practices has been organised for 41 lecturers selected from 12 technical and vocational institutions across the country in Sunyani.
The beneficiary institutions included the Adidome Farm Institute, Komboni Technical/Vocational Institute, Asuansi Technical Institute, Tamale Technical University, Ho Technical University, Kpando Technical University, Assemblies of God Institution for Higher Learning and the Wenchi Farm Institute.
Advertisement
The training, which ended last Friday, was organised by a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), ComCashew, in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), for the technical institutions in good agricultural practices on cashew plantation to enable them to pass their knowledge on to trainees in their various institutions.
Addressing the participants, the Bono Regional Director of Agriculture, Mr Dennis Amenga, stated that the current improved yield of 10 kilogrammes per cashew tree could increase to over 15 kilogrammes if farmers adhered strictly to good agricultural practices.
Pool of experts
Mr Amenga stated that capacity building, in a bid to create a pool of experts in the cashew industry, was one of the ways through which the country was preparing to benefit from the value chain of the industry.
He commended the government for the establishment of the Tree Crop Development Authority (TCDA) and expressed the hope that robust policy formulation and implementation would enable the country to derive maximum profit from its cashew production.
“We believe this training has played an enormous role in bringing on board training providers from the agricultural institutions to contribute their quota to improving the competitiveness of the Ghanaian cashew sector,” Mr Amenga said.
He, therefore, encouraged the participants to complement their teaching methods with the experience they had acquired from the training and reminded them to replicate the hands-on approach adopted during the five-day training period.
Important commodity
For his part, the Director of the Department of Crop Services of MoFA, Mr Seth Osei Akoto, said the cashew crop had become an important agricultural commodity in Ghana contributing significant revenue and, therefore, deserved the necessary attention.
Other Trending Stories
According to him, with the production estimate of 140,000 in 2020, the export of raw cashew nuts raked in an estimated $400 million in revenue to the country.
“The government is, therefore, committed to ensuring that all the benefits from the crop are realised,” he said, adding that MoFA would collaborate with all partners and actors along the value chain to develop the cashew sub-sector.
He gave an assurance that the government was actively putting measures in place to ensure the growth of the cashew sub-sector through the operationalisation of the TCDA and thanked ComCashew for its continued support in building the competitiveness of Ghanaians in the cashew industry.