Seminar for farmers on Lesser-Known Yam planting materials

Sekesua (ER), Sept 21, GNA - The Ministry of Environment and Science, has organised a day'S seminar for yam farmers at Sekesua in the Manya Krobo District of the Eastern Region, to sensitise them on the multiplication of Lesser-Known Yam Planting Materials programme, under the Government's Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS).

The programme, designed by the Ministry and its departmental agencies like the Plant Genetic Resources Centre (PGRC), Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME), aimed at improving the plant material base of yam in forest zones, especially, for subsistence farmers to increase production.

The Director of the PPME, Dr Rexford Osei, said the government, through such programmes, aimed at assisting yam farmers to multiply their planting material base for higher yield.

It was also to give small-scale farmers the right material and technology through environmental science, adopt modernised farming system, as well as adopt land use practices for good yields. "This forms part of the government's strategy to reduce poverty in the country, especially for those within the rural areas" Dr Osei stated.

An official from the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agricultural Research Institute (BNARI), Mr Eric Kwabena Asare, noted that most farmers who used the old method of acquiring yam-planting materials incurred 40 percent debt.

He explained that unlike the old system where the farmer got one material from a portion of the yam, with the new technology, one could get about 30 mini-sets from a tuber of yam, which, he said, could also be planted to yield about 200 others. Mr Asare said under the new technology, depending on the fertility of the land and the type of yam one is cultivating, a maximum of 800 mini-sets of the materials could be planted on an acre of land. He, therefore, advised yam farmers to get involved in the programme so that they would always get many planting materials for greater yield, saying, "you could also be a seed yam grower and get income from it".