CEDECOM equips fish, snail farmers with new skills

The Agriculture and Natural Resources Unit, of the Central Region Development Commission (CEDECOM), has equipped 135 snail and fish farmers, drawn from the Central Region, with new skills to help improve on their production capacity.

The farmers were treated to four days training in pond construction and management, snail farming, fish preservation, record keeping, business planning, and farm marketing and financing strategies.

At the close of the training programme, organised at Abrafo Odumase in the Twifo-Hemang-Lower-Denkyira District on Thursday, Mr. William Adofo, Head of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department of CEDECOM, said the main aim of his unit was to make sure that the Central Region develops through proper exploitation of its natural resources.

He advised the beneficiary farmers to promote networking among themselves, as a way of sustaining their operations.

A Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, Dr. Fischen Prempeh, called on the beneficiaries to treat their customers well, to enable them thrive in business, expressing worry over a scenario where one fish farmer lost customers, after failing to terminate a phone call when they went to buy fish from him.

A representative of the farmers, E. N. Erskine, said Ghana needed 700,000 tonnes of fish annually, and that a deficit of 400,000 must be imported to meet the demand, and urged farmers to cultivate more farms to feed the nation.