By Godfred A. Polkuu
Bolgatanga, June 13, GNA – Yara Ghana Limited, a fertilizer producing company, has launched its YaraVita Croplift Bio product in Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional capital.
The product is a foliar fertilizer containing essential nutrients such as NPK, secondary and trace elements including zinc, boron and magnesium that would improve fruit quality and enhance crop yield.
The product is also a crop booster and supplement, ideal for all cereals including maize, rice, sorghum, millet, fruits, vegetables and tree crops such as cocoa.
The launch brought together some District Directors from the Department of Food and Agriculture and selected farmers, who were taken through practical demonstration on how to apply the product on crops.
Madam Theresa Randolph, the Country Manager of Yara Ghana Limited, in an interview with journalists after the launch, said the product was designed by the Company as part of initiatives to improve its environmental footprint.
“It enables us to ensure that we can have better and correct application of the nutrients right to the source where the plant needs it most, and this was the rational behind this product,” she said.
Asked how different the product was from those already on the market, Madam Randolph explained that “The clear difference is in the fact that, this is a foliar fertilizer.
“The application is directly to the leave of the plant, where the plant is about to absorb the nutrient directly, which is quite different from normal fertilizer application to the soil,” she added.
She said if farmers properly used the right quantity of the product and applied it directly to the leaves of their plants, as was demonstrated to them, it would ensure that they had general foliage, better flowering and crop yields.
“This enhances right after basal application. Two weeks after the basal application, if they apply the YaraVita Croplift Bio product, they kind of yield that they are expecting will definitely increase and, therefore, the farmer ultimately benefits,” Madam Randolph said.
She said the product had undergone extensive testing by the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana, and was further taken through development studies at the University for Development Studies in Tamale to ensure it worked well within the environment.
The Country Manager said management of Yara Ghana Limited would continue with its mission to ensure prosperity of all farmers, reduce the use of fertilizer, soil contamination for less nutrient contamination both in the soil and nutrient run-off into water bodies.
Mr Basit Ussif Alabi, an Agronomist with Yara Ghana Limited, who spoke on crop health, said “Crop health basically boiled down to crop nutrition. The nutrition by which the plant was been fed determined the immune system of the plant.
“So Croplift Bio, is a product we are introducing into the market that has all the essential nutrients to support the crop from the initial stage of growth till harvest,” he said.
Mr Christopher Atasu, a farmer at Paga in the Kassena-Nankana West District, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after the launch, expressed the hope that the product would help boost his crop yields.
“As a farmer, it is s the end results that I want. If we get good harvest after using the product on the variety of crops mentioned, then the product would be well patronized,” he said.
GNA