The areas would be the building of capacity for grassroots farmers to hold government accountable on its agricultural policies and the promotion of sustainable farming through agro-ecology farming practices in Ghana.

The workshop brought together participants from the 10 regions of the country with varied years of farming practice to understand and take advantage of the government’s flagship programmes, thus, ‘one village, one dam’, ‘planting for food and jobs’ and ‘one district, one factory’.

Mr Charles Kwowe Nyaaba, the Programmes Director of PFAG, said the project was expected to create an enabling policy environment for sustainable farming, food security and poverty reduction, among smallholder farmers in Ghana.

Mr Nyaaba said the agro-ecology aspect of the two-year project was expected to instil in farmers, no-till farming technologies, adoption of low external inputs, mixed farming and cropping, crop rotation, agro-forestry, biodiversity conservation, seed storage, soil fertility, as well as pest and diseases control.

The project, he said, would ensure improvement of livelihoods, environmental sustainability and food sovereignty for Ghana and would be implemented in partnership with researchers from the University of Ghana, Civil Society Organisations and the media.

Madam Victoria Adongo, the Executive Director of PFAG, urged members of the association to take keen interest in understanding the project in order to communicate to the various farmer groups they were representing.

She said it would be prudent for every peasant farmer to understand and take advantage of the government flagship programmes and also help in ensuring a sustainable farming by adopting best farming practices.

Mr Abdul-Rahman Mohammed, the National President of PFAG, in his address noted that the association was against the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) because it had nothing good to offer the country in the long term.

He said the acceptance of GMOs in Ghana would eradicate the various types of seeds inherited from the older generation, thereby, depriving the future generation of the countries heritage in terms of seed production.

He said the two-year programme project was necessitated by the increase in toxic consumption due to the use of pesticides, adding that, “we have to go this dimension to use agro-economy farming to reduce the burden we are seeing today”.

He said it was highly important for farmers to know and understand the practice of agro-ecology farming to increase their farm yields and improve consumers’ health.