West African farmers, researchers meet in Wa

Wa, Nov.9, GNA - Farmers and researchers from four West African countries are holding a three-day international farmers exchange forum in Wa, to exchange ideas on best farming practices. The farmers who are from Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana would also discuss climatic and ecological conditions, cultivation of variety of crops and forge links between themselves. The Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) in collaboration with the Wa Municipal Agriculture Development Office, are hosting the event with sponsorship from Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany. Addressing the farmers, Dr. Lunger Herrmann, a Project Coordinator of CODE-Wa, said the forum would help promote community management of crop diversity to enhance resilience, yield stability and income generation.

He called on the farmers to develop different farming practices and adopt new crop varieties suitable and more reliable to the ecological and climatic conditions in West Africa. Dr. Jesse Naab, Senior Research Scientist and Head of the SARI Station in Wa, briefed the farmers on the operations of the "Kamwini-Sungti" (God help us) women farmers group at Jonga. He said SARI has introduced variety of crops to the groups to evaluate and select those suitable for production. The Ghana's forum is the third International Farmers Exchange series among the four countries with Burkina Faso and Mali taken their terms in 2008 and 2009 respectively. The farmers would discuss among others, soyabean production and utilisation, integrated striga control, rain fed eggplant production, women off season gardening, production and utilisation of hibiscus and seed multiplication. 9 Nov. 10