By
Christopher Tetteh, GNA
Esereso (B/R), Feb.
08, GNA – The Environment and Agriculture Women Association of Ghana (EAWAG)
has embarked on separate community outreach sensitisation forum for farmers on
the need to practice organic farming to maintain farm lands fertility for
healthy food crop production.
The beneficiary
farmers were organised respectively at Esereso, Wabirease, Tumiamayenko,
Apprakukrom, Bofokrom and Abronye, all farming communities in the Sunyani West
Municipality of the Bono Region.
The project, funded
by Global Green Grants Fund (GGGF) is being implemented in collaboration with
the Centre for Climate Change and Gender Studies (3CGS) of the University of
Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) on the theme: “Promoting Best Farming
Practices that Conserve Biodiversity, Mitigates Climate Change and Promotes
Environmental Sustainability”.
Speaking to the
Ghana News Agency on the side-lines of the forum at Esereso, Madam Emelia
Kyeremeh, the leader of EAWAG indicated that the programme also seeks to help
farmers to adapt climate change innovative farming practices and avoid bush
burning, deforestation and the continuous agro-chemicals application on their
farms.
Mad. Kyeremeh said
climate change had become a reality through “our own unsustainable
environmental and farming practices, with farmers mostly being the affected
group”.
In view of that, she
said there was the need for farmers to be inventive and engage in best farming
practices to avoid post-harvest losses, stressing that organic agriculture “is
the way to go for quality food production”
Mad. Kyeremeh cited
cultivation of cover crops such as cowpea and tree crops like cashew, coconut
and cocoa, in addition to the practice of shifting cultivation, mixed-cropping,
mulching and the use of animal droppings to enrich the soil for best organic
crop yields.
EAWAG, formed in
2014, is a women non-governmental organisation working to improve the economic
well-being of rural women, promote sustainable environment through best farming
practices and empower women to influence social and political decisions for
positive change in traditional and outmoded cultural practices, especially in
rural communities in the interest of women and children.
GNA