Bunuso (Ash), June 24, GNA - Fourteen maize farmers at Bunuso in the Sekyere West Municipality, have been honoured for hard work and unique contributions towards the nation's efforts at increasing food production. They were presented with wax print, agro-chemicals, wellington boots and machetes as their prizes.

The awards were put together by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-ADVANCE and the Salamatu Enterprise, local maize buying company.

Mr Emmanuel Gyarteng Mensah, Value-Chain Manager of the USAID-ADVANCE in charge of Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo, said the goal was to encourage the small holder farmers to adopt improved farming techniques to boost crop yield and returns.

This way the nation would be on course to winning the battle against hunger and poverty.

Giving the background to their association with the farmers, he said, it all started in July last year, when Hajia Salamatu Alhassan of the Salamatu Enterprise held discussions with them on ways to give technical support to farmers in the community, who relied on traditional planting techniques with little or no application of fertilizers.

Flowing from this, more than 40 farmers were selected and trained on modern farming methods and the result by way of maize production levels had been appreciable.

The 14 award winners were picked for their excellent practical applications of the new skills they had been exposed to, he said. Mr Mensah asked the beneficiaries to share the knowledge acquired with their colleague farmers in other nearby communities.

He assured them of the supply of a tractor, plough, harrow and maize-sheller.

Hajia Salamatu said she was proud that the farmers were now earning more income from their farming business.

Through her initiative the farmers had been introduced to input credit scheme.

Mr Yakubu Atanseka, a farmer, said his farm yield had more than doubled through the USAID-ADVANCE intervention.