Inesfly to support farmers fight post-harvest losses

Inesfly Africa, manufactures of pests and insects control products, is to support Ghanaian farmers with knowledge in innovative technology that would enable Ghana to drastically reduce post-harvest losses.

The training, which would be offered free to the farmers, aims to identify the behaviour pattern of pests and insects that poses a major challenge to farming activities in the country.

The Executive Director of Inesfly Africa, Mr Alejandro Pons who announced this in a congratulatory message to farmers on the occasion of the Farmers Day on Saturday, expressed the importance of having a coordinated way to transfer innovative technological knowledge on pests and insects control to farmers.

From January 2015 to 2016, he said, Inesfly Africa would start the training dubbed: “Pest Control in the New Millennium.”

Accordingly to him, the programme would be sector-specific since products like cocoa, banana, mango or oil palm, coconut or tomatoes do not have the same pest or insect problems.

He said: “Ensuring the export of quality produce from Ghana to the international market has become critical due to the continuous imposition of strict European Union requirements of the standard of farm produce from developing countries.

“Inesfly will want to partner the farmers to adopt the right control measures for pests and insect to make their produce meet the requirements of the international specification.”

Recognising the pivotal role of Ghanaian farmers, Mr Pons said the company “believes that healthy farms are as important as healthy farmers. That is why anything that threatens the health of farms must be of paramount concern to stakeholders in the farming chain”.

“So in honouring Ghanaian farmers, Inesly has opened its doors to collaborate with the relevant ministries and departments concerned with agriculture to make available the Insefly technology to farmers to help with their farming business.

Inesfly products like Inespalm, he said when applied at the trunk of the tree as well as the prune surfaces help to protect against red palm weevil.

Currently, Insefly is developing a new product for banana to be tested and approved by the regulatory agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency.