Indian investors engage stakeholders in Ellembelle on carbon solutions to agriculture

Some investors from Erda Illumine Low Carbon Solutions Company in India have engaged stakeholders in two communities in the Ellembelle District on sustainable agricultural practices and climate change resilience mechanisms.

The engagement, held at Kikam and Kamgbunli communities, was attended by stakeholders from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Ellembelle District Assembly, Ghana Education Service, traditional rulers, community leaders, farmers, and the media.

It was a collaboration between the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) and the Erda Illumine Low Carbon Solutions Company.

Climate change has become a global threat to agricultural practices and human existences which required concerted efforts to mitigate carbon from the Greenhouse Gas emissions.

Mr Wepia Awal Addo Adugwala, President of the PFAG, speaking at the opening of the event said the Indian investors were in the district to study the environment and climatic conditions and how best they could assist farmers to find nature-based solutions to agriculture.

He mentioned some of the interventions as the use of bio-digesters to produce biogas to fertilize the farms, carbon sequestration, agroecology, afforestation, filtration of polluted rivers and build a dam for irrigation of a rice farm at Kamgbunli as well as an organic tomato farming, among others.

Mr Adugwala assured the investors of their readiness to cooperate with them to ensure a major boost in agricultural productivity in the district.

Mr Gagagdeep Arya, Director at the Erda Illumine Low Carbon Solutions Company, who was flanked by his Programme Associates, Messrs. Kishan Karanaken and Chewdhuny Nasmul Haque, expressed profound gratitude to the PFAG for the maiden invitation to Ghana to help streamline agricultural practices in the quest for food security.

He said negotiations with the EPA had been completed in Accra and asked the communities to pool their resources together to undertake the project which would involve training, education, skills development, and direct employment.

The team which had visited a rice farm at Kamgbunli, where a dam was under construction along the River Fia, said they would embark upon filtration of the polluted river from the source for irrigation purposes.

The team also visited the Uthman Bin Affan Islamic Senior High School at Kamgbunli where they assured the school of assisting them in tree planting exercise with economic and other trees.