50 Women farmers schooled on post-harvest losses
Fity women smallholder farmers who cultivate maize in the Techiman North District, Techiman South Municipality and surrounding areas in the Brong Ahafo Region have participated in workshops to help reduce post-harvest losses.
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The workshops were to enlighten the participants on afflatoxin contamination, a fungi infection which negatively affects maize production, resulting in major post-harvest losses, affects maize production in the country.
Maize production
Smallholder women maize farmers in the Techiman Municipality, Techiman North District as well as Nkoranza and their surrounding communities are large-scale maize producers in the Brong Ahafo Region.
The workshops were run under the auspices of SEND-Ghana, a policy advocacy non-governmental organisation (NGO) working with smallholder farmers, and was funded by the Southern African Trust, a donor organisation in South Africa under a project, “Strengthening Linkages between Research and Advocacy for Greater Policy Influence”.
Working relationship
Addressing participants in separate workshops at Tuobodom and Mangoase, the Programme Officer of SEND-Ghana, Mr Daniel Adotey Akai, explained that the organisation wanted to strengthen the working relationship between research institutions and advocacy organisations, as well as the media, to help address the problem with afflatoxin, indicating that the project would also help to increase the income of the farmers and improve their livelihood.
Mr Akai, therefore, called on the Plant Protection and Regulatory Directorate to collaborate with the Extension Services Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to educate the farmers on the best way of handling their maize so as to reduce or eliminate Afflatoxin contamination.
The Techiman North District Chief Executive, Mr Anthony Kwaku Manu, urged the farmers to contact the district assembly constantly for the needed assistance.
He advised them to be active in their farming activities to generate enough income to improve their living conditions.
Mr Manu urged the participants to apply the knowledge they had acquired at the workshop to help reduce post-harvest losses and to increase maize production in the districts.
National Coordinator
The National Coordinator of the Ecumenical Association of Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development (ECASARD), Dr King David Amoah, said afflatoxin causes many diseases, and indicated that plans were far advanced to grade maize in different categories commensurate with their prices.
The Assistant Brong Ahafo Regional Plant Protection and Regulatory Service Officer, Mr Fred Asante, said maize should be well dried to avoid or reduce afflatoxin contamination.
He said silos were being constructed in some areas in the region for the storage of maize and urged the farmers to always seek advice from the municipal and district offices of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture before starting cultivation and to not wait until they had problems in their farms, before doing so.