The Rural Enterprise Programme (REP)/ Business Advisory Centre (BAC) Project, had trained farmers and processors in five communities in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipality, to boost their income-generating activities.

The beneficiary communities are Breman, Ankwanda, Abrem-Agona, Nkontrodu and Elmina Zongo.

They were taken through cassava processing into gari fortified with soya bean and margarine to generate the required nutrients, cassava into flour for the baking of pastries, soap and cosmetic making and the processing of cassava and plantain into fufu flour.

At Breman, the capacities of 43 members, including 10 women of the Breman Adoye Kuw farmers, were built to enable them add value to the processing of gari.

Ankwanda, had 25 women benefitting from the programme, and they were trained in cassava flour and fufu powder processing, as well as starch and tapioca production, while 21 women learnt cosmetics and soap making at Abrem Agona.

Twenty-five and 22 participants respectively from Nkontrodu and Elmina Zongo, also benefitted from cosmetics and soap making.

Members of the Nkontrodu group were further trained in financial and business management skills, customer relations and costing and pricing.

Speaking at separate ceremonies to close the five-day programme sponsored by REP, Ms Veronica Essel, Head of KEEA REP/BAC, urged the participants to apply the skills they have acquired to add value to the products to help them to generate more income.

Ms Essel said a follow-up after a similar programme showed that the beneficiaries were utilizing the skills acquired, whilst the participants themselves testified that improving on the processing of the various products had helped boost their market.

She told the GNA that the processors would be provided start-up basic equipment and tools for cassava processing next year.

Mr. Daniel Morgadzi, resource person from REP, encouraged the participants to use the skills they have acquired to enable them attract more market for their products, and pledged to get them ready market if they improved on their activities.

The participants appealed for funding to enable them go into large scale production.