Vegetable Farmers Urge Gov't To Help Revive The Sector After EU Lifted Ban

Vegetable farmers have appealed to the government of Ghana under Nana Akufo-Addo to take advantange of the ban lifted on Ghana's exports by the European Union by revamping vegetable farming.

According to the farmers, this is the time government needed to support them with all the necessary tools and agro-chemicals to improve planting, post harvest management as well as packaging in line with high professional standards.

Most of these included Cumcumber, Tomatoes and Cabbage farmers mainly from the Atomic farms under the Atomic Energy in Accra.

The group led by Alexander Agbena, Secretary to the Atomic Energy Farmers Association, expressed these concerns when some trained and certified agronomists visited the Atomic farms last week.

About 30 agronomists, who were recently trained by GhanaVeg, were dispatched to go and educate farmers on the their farms through the use of the right application of modern farming technologies to boost production.

The training was under the auspices of GhanaVeg with support from the Department of Applied Plant Research of Wageningen UR in the Netherlands.

These certified agronomists who have undergone the on-field training on seedling production, crop protection, spray techniques, irrigation and fertilization among others at the Atomic farms on in Accra, demonstrated and transferred their knowledge to farmer groups in the vegetable sector.

The move enabled farmers to get experience from direct demonstrations and ask the necessary questions from the experts.

Deputy Program Leader at GhanaVeg, Sheila Assibey-Yeboah, stressed that the initiative is to promote a competitive sector.

"Vegetables are now cash crops which when invested into, will generate a lot of income to improve Ghana’s economy," she said.

On his part, the Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, Ron Strikker assured the farmers of continued support to enable Ghana commercialize the production of vegetables through the use of technology.