CropLife Ghana and Cargill Ghana trained 31 Farmers at Bibiani District in the Western North Region

Program was carried out as schedule with farmers at Calvary Power Church at Bibiani. Generally 31 out of 36 selected farmers participated in the training. Majority of the participants reported on time and the program started at exactly 9 am each day. It was observed that farmers had little knowledge about safe and responsible use of crop protection products. The training program was Interactive as farmers shared experiences on crop protection crops which was highly dangerous to their health and many years misuse of these products. Farmers testified that this training is one of the most important trainings they have acquired and the monies wasted many years without effective control of pest in their farms. Farmers further requested for general training of pesticides to all their cooperative members. Practical training sessions were organized in a cocoa farm. Present were minimum of 4 Cargil officers each day throughout the training period recording 6 Cargil officers on day 1 and 2

Interesting Topics

Farmers showed more interest in all the topics especially Integrated Pest Management, Scouting, Pruning, Pesticides formulation, mode of action and Harzards of pesticides. It was also realized farmers were aware of Personal Protective Equipment and new how to put it on but was not using them.

Difficult Topics

One of the difficult topics was Records keeping as farmers were not much abrest on farm records keeping.

Challenges

One of the major challenges encounted was Cargil officers interference in the training money issues with regards to farmers created a lot of challenges throughout the training period. However I was able to convince them to concentrate on the knowledge and business acquisition instead and they participated throughtout the schedule training period until issues were resolved.

Recommendations

It is recommended that next trainings be organized solely based on Croplife policies without interference from project partners especially training organization issues.