The participants were drawn from the Municipal and Dis­trict Assemblies (MDAs) in the Savannah Region aimed to deepen their knowledge and skills in order to reduce post-harvest food loss and management to promote sustainable agriculture practices to boast food security, and enhance resilience for smallholder farmers in the selected districts.

The workshop was organised by Food and Agricultural Organisa­tion of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with the Internation­al Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

The European Union in Septem­ber 2023 launched a $10 million EU Food Security Response in Northern Ghana Project, in part­nership with FAO and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA).

The Support, he said, was to provide a better food production and build resilient agrifood systems in six food-insecure districts in the Upper East Region (Kassena Nan­kana West and Bongo districts), Savannah Region (North Gonja, North-East Gonja and Central Gonja districts) and North East Region (Bunkpurugu – Nakpandu­ri) in Northern part of Ghana.

“The six districts are supported to increase maize, millet, sorghum, soybean, groundnut, vegetables (to­mato), poultry, piggery, and animal health support” he stated.

Mr Gebru stated that early this year, maize seeds, sorghum founda­tion seeds, millet foundation seeds, and NPK and urea fertilizers were distributed to 12,600 smallholder farmers to support the 2024 plant­ing season in various communities across the beneficiaries’ districts in the country.

He said the project was accel­erating efforts to mitigate the effects of the dry- spell which occurred be­tween July and August this year.

This, according to him, the proj­ect would go a long way to focus on boosting livestock and poultry production, promoting dry-season vegetable cultivation, offering al­ternative livelihoods to the affected farmers and building resilience against future climate shocks.

He added that since the launch of the project a year ago, they had organised a specialised training Programme for 90 Agricultural Extension Agents (AEAs) and District Directors of Agriculture across the beneficiary’s regions to equip them on the improved post-harvest management prac­tices in the country.

Mr Gebru, however, appealed to the participants to take the training serious as they were going to equip members of their respective communities on the knowledge that they had gained in the workshop.

The District Director of Agriculture of the North East Gonja, Madam Noami Zaato, thanked, FAO and IITA for partnering each other to give them such a training.

She said the training would help them to also train members of their communities effectively.

She, therefore, appealed to FAO and IITA to continue with the training to give them more knowl­edge as climate change was now a disturbing issue to farmers in the northern part of the country.