By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Navrongo (U/E), July 26, GNA – Some communities in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality and its environs in the Upper East Region have acquired knowledge and skills on planting and nurturing tree seedlings to promote high survival rate.
The beneficiaries of about 300 households also benefitted from grafted mango trees to plant and nurture for them to grow.
The training was part of the implementation of a Climate Change and Livelihood Empowerment Project being implemented by Our Lady of Mercy Community Services (OLAM), an NGO, with funding support from VASTENACTIE-BELGIUM and OSIWA-SENEGAL.
Mr Dominic Adomako-Kontoh, the Field Officer of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA-Ghana), who took the participants through the training observed that one of the major challenges confronting the survival rates of planted trees in the country was due to lack of capacity building on the part of people given tree seedlings to plant.
He said research had it that the low survival rates of planted tree seedling were mainly because of lack of technical knowledge in growing trees and regretted that many organisations including state intuitions spent huge sums of money in procuring seedlings to distribute to communities to plant, only for them to die.
He indicated that organizations his outfit had supported in building their knowledge technically in economic tree planting such as mangoes and cashew were doing extremely well and admonished organisations desiring to empower communities to grow trees to involve Experts in tree growing.
He took the beneficiary households through the correct digging process in terms of suitable length and breadth for planting seedlings and the importance of the top soil to the survival rate of the seedling plant.
He also schooled the participants on how to discover appropriate soils for grafted mango seedlings and other related plant seedlings.
“Unlike the locally breed mango seedlings, the grafted mangoes are very delicate and need special attention for their survival and growth, grafted mango seedlings do not want waterlog areas”.
He said the regions of the north had the greatest potentials for mango plantation due to its sunny nature and indicated that with well-planned irrigation system, the five regions of the north could be the best in producing quality mango fruits in the country.
Mr Anthony Akum Atanga Kwarania, a 76-year-old man, thanked the NGO for the intervention and said it would help address the climate change issues in the communities and also empower them in their economic livelihoods.
Citing himself as example, the 76-year-old man, who is a native of the Kwarania community, a suburb of Kassena-Nankana Municipality, explained that he now reaps the benefits of the mango seedlings he planted in his community when he was in active service working with the Mim Timber Company in the Greater Accra Region.
Mr Emmanuel Atiiga, the Chief Executive Officer of OLAM, told the community members that climate change was a global problem and there was the need for every community member to get involved to mitigate it.
He encouraged the beneficiaries to put into practice the training they acquired from the programme on tree planting to help combat climate change and help improve their economic livelihoods, stressing “there is ready market for the mango fruits”.
He added that his outfit in collaboration with ADRA would periodically conduct monitoring visits to the beneficiary households to see the growth rates of the trees and to advise.
Mr Atiiga said the project which was on its pilot stage would run on annually basis and would continue to enroll in more households.
GNA