More than 150,000 cashew grafts distributed to farmers – Minister

Company News from Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Source: ghananewsagency.org

2019-05-28

Mr. George Oduro, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, said that the government's collaboration with the Brazilian Embbady in the framework of trilateral cooperation had helped to distribute more than 150,000 cashew grafts to farmers across the country.

The collaboration also resulted in the establishment of scion banks and the creation of cashew test plots to improve the development of cashew nuts in the country.

It was a speech read on behalf of the Deputy Minister Monday at the opening of the first session of the Ninth Edition of the Master Training Program on the Advancement of Cashew Value Chain, jointly organized by ComCashew and African Cashew Alliance.

The one-week program aims to increase the theoretical knowledge and practical skills of African cashew experts along the value chain and further promote the competitiveness of African cashew nuts.

The training program brought together 91 cashew experts from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d 'Ivoire, Ghana, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, Madagascar and Zambia to share knowledge, discuss best practices and create national and regional strategies. networks for future collaboration.

The program is funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
The deputy minister said the government will continue to prioritize cashew nuts because of its potential for developing the agricultural sector.

"The cashew nut has proven to be extremely lucrative, providing about 53% of non-traditional crop exports to Ghana in 2018," he added.

He added that the cashew industry had informed the government of the establishment of the Ghana Tree Crop Development Authority, which was to be promulgated this year.
Mr. Oduro said the training program would help develop the expertise needed to make the work of the Authority relevant and impactful.

He said that with stakeholder collaboration, the country would be well on its way to strengthening the Ghanaian cashew sector.

Rita Weidinger, executive director of ComCashew, said that since the launch of the program in 2013, 456 experts from 15 countries have become agents of change in their organizations and in their countries.

She said the program would focus on improving the development of planting material, creating new plantations and designing an adult education program, among others.

She stressed that participants would be introduced to monitoring and evaluation, as well as to promoting the cashew value chain and gender, adding that at each session, "there is a combination of topics on self-reflection and perception management, as well as on behaviors and values ​​that affect learning and teaching. .

Participants would discover all aspects of the cashew value chain, from raw cashew nut production and processing to the economy, to the dynamics of the cashew market, to the marketing and marketing mechanisms. funding.

The highlight of the program would be a field visit to the research station of the Ghana Cocoa Research Institute and farm tours to the country's cashew nut production areas.