Workshop on water and sanitation opens

Ejura (Ash), March 26, GNA - A five-day workshop on the maintenance of water and sanitation facilities for 40 farmers from Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo opened at Ejura on Wednesday. The Adventist Relief Agency (ADRA) organised the programme that was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The workshop is aimed at equipping the participants who are members of the water and sanitation committees with the requisite knowledge on the management of water and sanitation facilities particularly those provided by ADRA.

They were drawn from the Ejura-Sekyedumase and Sekyere West districts of Ashanti and the Nkoranza district in Brong-Ahafo. Opening the workshop, Mr Fred Adjei Nketia, Field Project Officer of ADRA, noted that with the introduction of new varieties of maize, farmers from these areas had been able to double their yields and income.

He said for the past three years farmers at Ejura, Asante-Mampong and Nkoranza had harvested an average of 12 bags of maize per acre. The figure, Mr Nketia said, represented 100 per cent increase in production over the previous year's yield of six bags of maize per acre.

He said the farmers who were solely beneficiaries of ADRA's poverty reduction programme, apart from the maize also cultivated a wide range of hybrid crops thereby improving their incomes significantly. Miss Elizabeth Kumah, field Project Officer of ADRA in-charge of health, said since 1985, ADRA has assisted farmers and the rural people in diverse ways and pledged that ADRA would sustain the assistance.

Mrs Florence Ntim, Human Resource Manager of ADRA, called on women to actively participate in water and sanitation programmes. Madam Elizabeth Owusu, Ejura-Sekyedumase District Chief Executive, lauded ADRA for its complimentary role in the national reconstruction exercise.