World Bank supports Greenhouse Project
The World Bank has released $100,000 to the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP) to support a Greenhouse Project for the cultivation of vegetables in the country.
Out of the amount, each region would receive $10,000 to support regional and district projects.
This was made known by the National Co-ordinator of WAAPP Ghana, Mrs Azara Al-Mamshie in her opening address at a two-day capacity building workshop on the greenhouse technology for regional development officers and agricultural extension agents at Ejisu in the Ashanti Region.
The 70 participants were drawn from the Ashanti, Upper West, Upper East, Northern, Western and Central Regions.
Some of the topics treated were nursery management, crop protection, harvesting, post-harvest processes, record keeping, land preparation and crop cultivation techniques using improved hybrid seeds.
Mrs Al-Mamshie explained that the second phase of the WAAPP project was expected to benefit 700,000 individuals along the value chain at the end of the project's cycle of which 40 per cent should be women.
Greenhouse technology
She said as a result, WAAPP Ghana was promoting the greenhouse technology as a means of increasing yields and incomes of vegetable farmers across the country.
Mrs Al-Mamshie stated that WAAPP had over the years undertaken a massive dissemination drive in the area of improved technologies, including newly released varieties related to root and tubers, cereal and legumes, poultry, livestock and food processing.
"In 2015 WAAPP contracted Dizengoff to construct 150 greenhouses nationwide to promote the technology among vegetable farmers and to promote peri-urban vegetable farming in Ghana," she added.
She said apart from the 150 ventilated greenhouses constructed, the programme had also supported the National Extension Directorate and the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority to establish 10 other greenhouses for demonstration purposes.
The WAAPP programme, she said, had planned to construct at least 260 greenhouses to grow vegetables such as tomatoes,cucumber and sweet pepper under fully controlled environmental conditions for optimum growth and productivity.
The introduction of this technology would also open fresh window of opportunity to build the capacity of at least 300 regional development officers and 10 supervisors from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in greenhouse management.
"The intervention is expected to generate direct jobs for at least 1,000 vegetable farmers and 5,000 indirect beneficiaries along the commodity value chain," she said.
As part of the workshop, the participants were taken on a field trip to Kenyasi Truba, where one of the greenhouses is located under the WAAPP project, to have a practical knowledge of the technology.
