EKMA promotes urban agriculture for food security and job creation
The Effia-Kwesimintsim Municipal Assembly (EKMA) in the Western Region has put in place measures to promote urban agriculture to create jobs, ensure income growth and improve the living standards of residents within the Municipality.
The Assembly embarked on climate-smart agriculture, backed by the greening of the Municipality, and carried out some activities to complement the Government’s agenda of creating jobs within the agricultural space.
The activities included the use of pots, buckets, plastic, and wooden containers as well as soilless (sawdust)medium to cultivate crops while the Department of Agriculture also introduced rearing of catfish in tarpaulin ponds, quails, and rabbits.
Mr Kojo Acquah, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of EKMA who made this known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said the Assembly has also advertised the various enterprises on its website to encourage the youth, the unemployed, and retirees to take advantage of and urged them to visit the Agriculture Department of the Assembly to obtain more practical experience and skills.
He expressed optimism that the beneficiaries would put what they had learnt into practice to enhance their income levels and help reduce unemployment in the Municipality.
He indicated that a training workshop on the carrots value chain programme was organized for carrot farmers and other actors in the carrots value chain in collaboration with PYXERA Global, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) based in Effiakuma New-Site in the Municipality.
“The training became necessary since farmers in the cultivation of carrots within EKMA usually experienced low farm yields, high incidence of diseases, and high post-harvest losses due to their lack of experience and knowledge in carrot farming. This issue has existed far too long resulting in low income for carrot farmers”, he stressed.
The MCE was happy to announce that the capacity of farmers in the industry had been improved to effectively and efficiently produce carrots and process them into different forms to prolong their shelf life.
