ATP soil fertility workshop ends in Kumasi

A five-day training of trainers’ workshop on Integrated Soil Fertility Management, (ISFM) organized by the Agribusiness and Trade Promotion (ATP) project in collaboration with the Crop Life Africa Middle East has ended in Kumasi.
The training programme was aimed at improving the skills and performance of trainers as well as being part of activities intended to facilitate overall increase in maize production in a sustainable manner by strengthening the technical capacity of maize value-chain actors, through series of grassroots-level training facilitated by a pool of master trainers.
The workshop was also aimed at getting participants to improve upon their current ways of training and adapt more dynamic ways of training to achieve the desired results.
Participants were farmer trainers and resource persons who would be engaged in training other farmers to improve the environmental sustainability of production practices through Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Integrated Soil Fertility Management, (ISFM). These were intended to create greater awareness of the impact of poor soil fertility and pests including storage.
In an exclusive interview with B&FT, Mr. Frederick Boampong, a Programme Officer of CropLife Ghana, said after providing training to trainers on facilitation skills, ATP and CropLife would aim at increasing productivity in a sustainable manner through the application of modern training facilities, development and transfer of environmentally-sound agronomic technology and agricultural marketing.
The two projects have identified the training needs of trainers on ISFM and IPM because they serve as a key factor in raising productivity levels.
These workshops on facilitation skills is the first major outcome after ATP and CropLife signed a Memorandum of Understanding in September 2009 to set forth a framework for designing and implementing programmes that would increase farmers’ access to innovative agricultural technologies that can improve the quantity and quality of production and secure harvests.
So far, about 80 trainers have undergone facilitation training skills by ATP and CropLife who would later push through their training skills and knowledge to other farmer trainers in the targeted countries across West Africa.
From: Seth KRAMPAH