OCP offers free agronomic services to Oborpa West and East farmers

OCP Ghana Limited, a subsidiary of OCP Africa has in a collaboration with the Lower Manya Krobo Department of Agric Tuesday offered free agronomic services to farmers at Oborpa West And East both farming communities in the municipality.

The exercise which christened the OCP School Lab is a timely intervention by OCP Ghana involving analyzing soil samples from various farms in the communities to determine its efficiencies and deficiencies to guide the application of fertilizers.

Agronomist with OCP Ghana, Mr. Yaw Opoku Koduah in an interview averred that the exercise formed part of the company’s mandate of encouraging good farming practices to beneficiary farmers to ensure high yields.

“Farmers has consistently complained of low yields,” said Mr. Koduah. “This can however be addressed if farmers are thoroughly trained on good agronomic practices.”

The exercise which involves the moving of the OCP Caravan from one community to the other will see the team conduct the activity in ten communities in seven districts in four regions of the country.

The regions are Eastern, Ashanti, Upper East and Upper West regions.

Director of Agriculture at the Department of Agriculture in Lower Manya Krobo, Mr. Alex Fordjour while underscoring the importance of the project was hopeful that it will help the team to realize the challenges affecting farmers which invariably affected crop yield.

The exercise is targeting some 8400 small holder farmers in the Eastern region alone with an estimated 2100 soil analyses.

Farmers were also taken through various agronomic practices to enhance their farming knowledge and skills aimed at boosting crop and yield and curbing the deficiencies in crop production.

Some farmers who spoke in an interview after the exercise expressed contentment at the exercise and were hopeful that the training by the giant fertilizer company will help them improve on their farming practices.

The team hopes to complete its work in the Eastern region by Friday.