Cocoa farmers under-going training in modern agronomic practices

 

The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), an advocacy group against the use of child labour on cocoa farms, is establishing Cocoa Farmers’ Field Schools in some selected cocoa-growing communities in the country, to train cocoa farmers on modern agronomic practices to help increase crop yield and boost incomes of cocoa farmers.

The aim is to expose the farmers to and help them adopt new and modern planting techniques, proper farm maintenance practices, as well as the use and application of approved fertilizers and agro-chemicals on their farms.
Mr Prince Gyamfi, a Programme Associate of ICI, told the Ghana News Agency, that the objective of the project is to help cocoa farmers increase crop yield in their farms, boost incomes, cater properly for their families, send and maintain their children in schools.
An increased income would also enable the cocoa farmers hire adult labourers to work on their farms instead of using their children as labourers.
Mr Gyamfi said 65 cocoa farmers from nine districts in three cocoa-growing regions are currently under-going a four-week intensive training course in Kumasi, to serve as community facilitators of the field schools project in their respective communities.
He said ICI had identified poverty among cocoa farmers as a result of low crop yield, as one of the major factors for the use of their children as labourers on their farms.

Mr Gyamfi said since the core aim of ICI is to help reduce the use of children as labourers, it was appropriate to design a project that would help the farmers adopt modern practices to increase their crop yields and thereby, boost their incomes.
Efo Sylvanus Agordorku, Training Consultant of the project, identified the inability of small holder farmers to use hybrid cocoa seeds, indiscriminate use of unapproved agro-chemicals on their farms, as well as inappropriate cultural practices in cocoa farms, as some of the factors contributing to low cocoa production in the country.
He said the training programme would help the farmers identify various types of cocoa diseases and control them, undertake proper harvesting and sanitation in their farms, and use recommended and appropriate agro-chemicals and fertilizers on their farms.