Yara Ghana limited, a leading fertilizer supplier, has trained more than 1,000 extension officers and cocoa farmers on various relevant modern farming techniques to boost maximum cocoa crop production and utilisationin in the country.

As part of the company’s ‘Healthier Cocoa Campaign’ that took place in 16 districts in the Western region160 extension officers and 1,120 cocoa farmers benefited from the training.

Yara Ghana’s Head of Marketing and Business Development, Mr Henry Otoo, said in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency on Monday that:

“the campaign was instituted to ensure that majority of the farmers in the sector benefit from this unique fertilization programme intended to promote high productivity in the cultivation of cocoa.”

“It is an instituted annual programme that will continue to run in all the cocoa growing districts to ensure a drastic improvement in the yields that are currently being attained by farmers,” he added.

It is estimated that small-scale farmers constitute about 70 percent of the country’s labour force while access to extension services largely remain elusive due to acutely low number of extension agents.

Agricultural experts say just about 10 per cent of the country’s farmers receive extension services.

Mr Otoo, therefore justified the inclusion of the extension agents as part of moves to refresh their memories on nutrition of cocoa and to ensure that farmers continued to receive, what he referred to as the ground breaking education that would improve yields and incomes of the farmers.

Research has revealed that about 90 per cent of flowers produced by a cocoa tree will definitely drop before fruit set, he said, and that it was, therefore, imperative to ensure the production of a certain high number of flowers at any point if the crop was to bear sufficient fruits.

Despite the importance of nitric nitrogen to cocoa plants, Mr Otoo noted that fertilisers sold on the local market lacked that essential nutrition, and that in ‘YaraLiva NitraborTM’ fertilizer, farmers would have access to a unique source of nitrogen.

The presence of this nitric Nitrogen form, he added, increased the weight and size of the bean as well as the size of the pod by encouraging the uptake of others which are so crucial to the yield of cocoa but otherwise were dormant in the soil and thereby raised the farmers yield drastically.

He also said the presence of soluble Calcium and boron in YaraLiva NitraborTM is essential for cell wall resistance and therefore provides protection against Black Pod and other fungal diseases which plague the cocoa industry and which contribute to severe losses in the production of cocoa in Ghana.

According to Mr Otoo since the inception of Yara Ghana in 2007, many professional agronomists have been employed and trained in crop nutritional approaches to offer crucial educational support on fertilizer knowledge to farmers across the country.

The statement quoted Yara’s Managing Director, Mr Sergio Godoy as saying the regular training initiated would help farmers recognise the important role high quality fertilizers and crop nutrition play in determining yield and quality of cocoa, cereals and fruits as well as vegetable crops.

Mr Godoy expressed hope that Yara’s unique training approach would enable farmers to make informed decisions that would impact positively on their yields and lead to the country’s efforts at attaining significant increase in crop returns.

“Yara is the world’s leader in crop nutrition approaches and as part of its mandate Yara includes the education of farmers as one of its core mandates to ensure that farmers are able to make informed choices on crop nutrition that will subsequently culminate in higher yields,” he said.