Chobi Ghana Limited trains Planting for Food and Jobs distributors
Chobi Ghana Limited has organised a two-week training session for fertiliser distributors at the district level as part of the company’s commitment towards the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) 2019 campaign.
The training programme, which ran from May 7 to 17, 2019, was organised for selected districts in the Ashanti, Bono, Bono East regions and Ketu South and Ho Municipality.
The training was to highlight the problem of smuggling of fertilisers by some stakeholders in the PFJ programme.
At the training programme, the consequences of smuggling a fertiliser out of the country was clearly defined and spelt out to the distributors.
The consequences, as spelt out, included arrest and prosecution of complicit stakeholder; disqualification of stakeholders from the PFJ programme and other activities of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and blacklisting of complicit stakeholders from all activities of Chobi Ghana Limited.
A senior agronomist, Mr William Yaw Nuamah, who is also the Head of Sales and Marketing at Chobi, led the training of the distributors and retailers at Wenchi, Nkoranza, Techiman, Anloga, Ketu South, Ho and Ejura on the current modalities being implemented by the MoFA under the current PFJ programme.
He was assisted by the various municipal and district directors of agriculture.
In attendance
In attendance were other staff from MoFA at the district level, representatives from the Divisional and District Police commands, and some representatives from the offices of the metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives.
To ensure transparency and compliance in distribution, Chobi Ghana will soon launch GPS chips in its fertiliser bags to monitor the movement of its fertilisers in real time and to identify and apprehend smugglers.
This will allow security agencies and the relevant authorities to track fertiliser movement under the PFJ programme.
This, the company anticipates, will be a solution to the problem of fertiliser smuggling under the PFJ programme.
Participants expressed optimism and better understanding of the new modalities at the end of each session.
They pledged full compliance with the new modalities to ensure a successful implementation of the 2019 PFJ programme.