By Bertha Badu-Agyei, GNA
Accra, March 23, GNA – About 111,609 small holder Farmers have benefitted from the ‘Grow Ghana’ an initiative of Yara Ghana Limited, to help improve food security and farmer resilience.
The beneficiaries were mostly women and persons living with disabilities in some selected regions in Ghana.
In 2022, Yara Ghana Limited began a rapid response initiative dubbed ‘Grow Ghana’ to help small holder Farmers avert food insecurity occasioned by the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on global supply chains and limited fertilizer availability.
Yara, in collaboration with the African Fertilizer Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP) committed USD 20 million dollars to supply 18,000 metric tonnes of premium fertilizers to Farmers for free as well as access to low-cost high quality crops.
This was made known at a closure event of the initiative in Koforidua where 3,875 bags of fertilizers were distributed to women and persons with disabilities farmer groups.
Mrs Theresa Randolph, country Manager, Yara Ghana Limited, said impact of resilient, sustainable and profitability farming system for small holder Farmers through the initiative had been huge.
She explained that under the initiative small holder Farmers who were women and persons living with disabilities were each given a free bag of fertilizer on every two bags of fertilizer purchased.
“That way we reduced the cost of every acre of farming by 33.3 percent to women and vulnerable persons to improve yield and food security,” she disclosed.
Approximately 18,000 metric tons of YaraMila Actyva fertilizers, were distributed for free and increased production of over 500,000 metric tons of cereals.
The initiative provided employment for over 500 community-based agents, supporting the monitoring of distribution in the retail and distributor shops as well as technical support through farmer-based demonstration fields.
Mr Yaw Frimpong Addo, a deputy minister of agriculture in charge of crops commended Yara and partners for the initiative and hoped that the gains made would be sustained.
He said the second phase of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) was a further boost to the agriculture sector especially smallholder Farmers and other vulnerable groups to increase yields as well as profits.
GNA