Workshop to promote agro-forestry and tree planting ends in Walewale

A stakeholder's workshop to promote the development of agro-forestry and tree planting has ended at Walewale in the Northern Region.

The forum which was attended by community leaders, assemblymen, farmer’s groups as well as women leaders, talked about the environmental challenges being posed by desertification and climate change.

Mr George Ansah, Assistant Training Coordinator of “Trees for the Future”, a United States-based non-governmental organisation taught the stakeholders how agro-forestry technologies and the planting of fast growing multi-purpose trees can help transform their lives and solve the challenges facing them.

He said low soil fertility, increased erosion and flooding was affecting the lives of the people in the communities.

Mr Ansah said the integration of trees on farms such as moringa, leuceana, caliandra and the practice of crop rotation and green manuring can help improve soil fertility and increase food security in the areas.

He underscored the importance of tree planting through the creation of woodlots and windbreaks to help provide fuel-wood and protect the communities against windstorms.

“Cultivation of moringa, bee-keeping, grasscutter and mushroom production can also help generate incomes to improve the livelihood of the people in the area,” he emphasised.

Mr Lovans Owusu-Takyi, Country Director for Trees for the Future and a Lecturer at the Kumasi Institute of Tropical Agriculture (KITA) in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the NGO is committed to improving the lives of the people through the development of agro-forestry technologies.

He said tree planting and sustainable management practices would help reduce deforestation, climate change and low food security in the area.

Mr Owusu-Takyi said: “we are mobilising a network of stakeholders in agro-forestry to address the challenges of climate change through the introduction of the technologies to help improve the lives of the people.”

He said that Trees for the Future would continue to train, provide tree seeds and empower the people with livelihood programmes to transform their lives as well as the protection of the environment from desertification and climate change.

Mr Fatawu Sulemana, a Community Volunteer at Walewale expressed gratitude to the NGO and KITA for organising the forum to improve the environment and to promote agro-forestry, as well as taking them through income generating tricks.