He said this would assist them to meet the market expectations as well as generate income to enhance their living standards.

 He gave the advice on Tuesday in Tamale during a networking and marketing workshop, on the Capacity Development of Farmer-Based Cooperatives (FBCs) /Farmer-Based Organizations (FBOs) in Northern Ghana Project, targeted at some farmer groups within the three regions of the north.

The workshop sought to give the farmer groups the opportunity to obtain first-hand information on various purchasing requirements for their produce, acquire best practices and also know the operational modalities of the major produce buying companies.

 It was organized by KOICA through its implementing partner, the Association of Church-Based Development Programmes (ACDEP) in collaboration with the Masara N'arziki, Savannah Farmer Marketing Company Ltd (SFMC), Crop Care and Excel Bit Company.

 Mr Young-Ho said the networking workshop was one of the components of the capacity developments project to bring together farmer groups for better relationships and also interact with stakeholders at the business sectors along the agricultural value chain.

 He said KOICA had also provided sponsorship to some of the farmer groups to participate in an exhibition fair being organized as part of the annual pre-harvest event to take place in Tamale within the week.

 Mr Cornelius Kuukaraa, the Value Chain Programme Manager of ACDEP, said the workshop was to help give the farmers the opportunity to identify and get in touch with buyers of farm produce and companies by way of identifying their demands and modules.

 He said it was also expected that at the end of the workshop farmers would also be able to sustain and continue to network with these companies to expand their business.

 Madam Matilda Exornam Egbenya, the Extension Manager of Masara N'arziki in a presentation said, Masara N'arzik aims at creating an opportunity for maize and cotton farmers to improve on their farming activities by helping them generate income through their increased productivity.

 She said they gave farmers quality inputs on credit without interest, logical and technical supports and also offered farmers guaranteed markets and prices to sell their produce.

 Madam Exornam said they also gave inputs packages such as huge kilograms of improved hybrid seeds, bags of fertilisers, weedicides and insecticide spray for the fall army worm and other optional inputs for farmers.

 She urged all farmers to partner with Masara N'arzik to help improve on their yield and productivity.

 Mr James Ayong, the Operations Officer of Savannah Farmer Marketing Company Ltd (SFMC) also in a presentation, said the company aggregate and markets agriculture commodities produced from farmers such as soybeans and maize within the northern zone.

He said the company had carved a niche for itself as a leading supply of high quality soybeans and maize and as such place importance on the quality of produce that the company aggregates from smallholder farmers.

 Mr Ayong said the company had a farmer network of about 5,000 but had actively engaged with 3,500 in 2018 through the provision of ploughing services applied only to soybeans farmers.

 He said the company in 2018 had achieved a demand of over 8,400 metric tonnes of soyabeans within the marketing season and urged all farmer groups to associate with the SFMC to improve on their production. 

Speaking in an interview with Ghana News Agency, Mr Iddrisu Abubakari, a member of the Sung-Sumah Co-operative in the Upper West Region, said the group had gotten the opportunity to interact and share ideas with some of the marketing partners, which had assured them of easy access to farm inputs to boost their production.

 Madam Mahama Sabratu,  a member of the Nasia Women Co-operative in the Upper East Region, said the workshop had help them identify some organizations they could go to for support and also had encouraged female farmers to engage in commercial farming to help support themselves .

 Mr Anaane Dominic, a member of the Bolga-Yipaala Akantaaba Multipurpose Co-operative Society Limited in Upper East Region, said the workshop had created a link between the farmer organizations and the marketers and they had identified some business opportunities that they were going to explore to become independent and not to depend on government for their livelihoods.