Farmers acquire skills in grass-cutter production

Nkwankwaa (Ash), Aug 4, GNA - A 10-day training workshop on grass-cutter rearing for 10 selected farmers and extension officers in some communities in the Offinso district ended on Thursday at Nkwankwaa. The training workshop, which is part of the biodiversity conservation project of Tropenbos International Ghana, aimed at building the capacities of the beneficiaries for sustainable alternative livelihood and thereby conserves the natural resources in their communities.

The beneficiary farmers were from Adankwata, Nkwankwaa, Safokrom, Konkon, Amoanin, Kwapanin and Dwendabi.

In an address read for him at the closing ceremony, Mr Kwabena Nketia, Programme Team Leader of Tropenbos, said 10 communities in the Offinso district had been selected and benefited from awareness creation and capacity building in biodiversity conservation, sustainable forest resources management and alternative livelihood schemes.

He said a total of 5,000 people including women and children were targeted in the awareness creation exercise, adding that, 50 people would be trained in alternative livelihood schemes such as tree planting and production of non-timber forest products, bee keeping, grass-cutter rearing and the production of leafy vegetables.

Mr Nketia said another batch of farmers would benefit from snail rearing and bee keeping training programmes and urged the beneficiaries to pass the knowledge on to other members in their communities to enable them take advantage.

Mrs Cecilia Kagya Agyeman, Offinso District Director of Food and Agriculture, thanked Tropenbos for the training programme for farmers in the district.

She said the project would enable the farmers to diversify and increase their incomes in order to reduce poverty in rural areas. Mrs Agyeman urged the beneficiaries to put the knowledge acquired to good use in order to benefit from the project.

Nana Osei Frimpong, Krontihene of Nkwankwaa, who chaired the function, commended Tropenbos and said the project would help alleviate poverty in the beneficiary communities.