Trainer of Trainers Workshop Organized at Manga Bawku-UER

 Lack of access to farm inputs particularly improved seeds coupled with unfavorable climatic change are among factors that accounts for food insecurity and poverty in developing countries including Ghana.  

For example, during the 2017 farming season, most smallholder farmers could not get access to improved seed from the government’s intervention of Planting for food and Job programme. 

As a way forward, the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute, SARI has organized a day’s workshop at Manga in Bawku to school players in the Agricultural sector on the Community-Based Seed Production CBSP system, a strategy developed  to increase farmers’ access to diversified crop varieties in rural areas. 

A trainer of trainers’ workshop with sponsorship from the Kirkhouse Trust Project, based in the United Kingdom was geared at bridging the inequality gap between the formal and informal sectors.

 Kirkhouse Trust Project has been a founding partner for SARI since 2008 in the area of promoting farmers access to improved cowpea seeds to help alleviates poverty in Ghana. 

They came out with a field resistance of the five commercially important Cowper varieties in Ghana in 2016. 

The workshop was intended to enhance farmers’ access to improved seeds together with stakeholders who share the value of cowpea seed dissemination, by training them on Community Seed Production Concept CSPC. By so doing, they can in turn share the knowledge with farmers in their respective communities. 

Participants include Agricultural Extension Officers from Bawku and its adjoining communities, as well as post-graduate students from the Kwame Nkurumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST among some staff of SARI. 

In an interview with Ghana Today, a Senior Research Scientist in charge of SARI Manga Agricultural Station, Dr. Francis Kusi said, the current project will adopt the CORAF sponsored Innovation Platform IP which is the nucleus out-growers model of seed production and distribution. 

He indicated that the aim of the project is to increase crop productivity, food security, and more importantly improve the livelihood of small-scale farmers in Northern Ghana through adaptation of improved seeds of cowpea. 

Dr. Kusi added that, the new strategy will enable out growers in large scale companies across the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions to be identified as private partners of the project. 

The IP he indicated will be used to train the out-growers as seed producers for the large scale companies Dr. Kusi further indicated that, the training will enhance the capacity of farmers to adopt improved technologies to increase their production. 

A facilitator and a researcher, Dr. I D K Atokple noted that if demonstrations are not organized after the release of every new variety, the variety remains unknown and this means that no work was done. He seized the platform to explain the relevance of community seed production.

The CSP approach seeks to target farmers in the remote areas that usually do not have access to certify seeds because agro-input dealers are located in the district capitals. 

Based on that, some elite farmers will be selected and trained in the remote areas to serve as seed producers in their respective communities.