A seven-day agro-ecology workshop ends in Techiman

Techiman (B/A) Dec. 28 GNA – A seven-day training workshop for 35 participants drawn from Agro-Ecology trainers in Africa has ended in Techiman in Brong Ahafo.

Organised by the Ecumenical Association for Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development (ECASARD) the workshop attracted eleven African countries and was under the theme “Ecological Farming, the traditional methods without chemical products for sustainable agriculture”.

The main objective of the workshop was to train peasant farmers on agro-ecology and to create a permanent space for exchange and integration for member organisations of LVC in Africa.

The regions are Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Congo, Togo, Senegal, Angola, Burkina-Faso, Mozambique, Mexico, Equatorial Guinea and Sri Lanka.

Dr King David Amoah, national president of ECASARD in a closing address said a suitable political environment was necessary to develop agro-ecology and peasant farming.

He said that could be achieved through exchange of visits, training, pedagogical materials, agro-ecological methods, with farmers' organisations to strengthen the intended work on the agro-ecology without leaning to any stakeholder abroad.

He said ECASARD has more than 123 farmer-based organisations within seven regions of member countries of Africa-2 regions adding that farmers need to have adequate knowledge on organic agriculture and related fields in order to improve indigenous agriculture extension delivery system.

Mr Peter Rosert, technical staff of LVC from Mexico, said policies of agro-ecological farming, as practice by small holder farmers and food sovereignty, “offer reasonable and feasible solutions to the multiple challenges facing Africa–2 regions of farmers”.

Nana Kwao Adams, Twafohene of Forikrom and executive director of Abrono Organic Farming Project (ABOFAP) who presided over the function, called on farmers to revisit old farming methods in which no chemicals were applied on farms.

He said use of chemicals on food crops in the so-called modern world is claiming more lives in Sub-Saharan countries and urged the participants to impart the knowledge they had acquired to their colleague farmers in their areas.

GNA