Stop unhealthy competition, working in isolation – Green for Change Ghana to cashew farmers

Savannah Regional-based non-governmental organization, Green for Change Ghana, has cautioned cashew farmers, particularly the young ones in the region to stop the unhealthy practice of working in isolation and competing among themselves.

According to the organization, 88% of smallholder farmers in Ghana are into cashew but are being marginalized within the value-chain, hence the need for intervention to enhance the knowledge to produce quality cashew nuts.

The Executive Director of Green for Change Ghana, John Balankoo Sumbo, during a workshop in Damongo in the West Gonja Municipality said farmers deserve the best from their sweat.

GCG in partnership with Nathan Associates, initiated a project called “Empowering Small Holder Cashew Farmers for a Sustainable Future”.

The project brought together 300 smallholder cashew farmers who will in turn serve as Ambassadors to their communities through a six-month intensive training on production quality, how to determine the quality of the nuts, moisture content, defective rate, and harvest, and how to prevent post-harvest losses including how to work in groups to sell their nuts.

Some 30 lead cashew farmers also benefited from the training.

Mr. John Balankoo Sumbo in an interview with Myjoyonline said their focus is, “that, if farmers produce or harvest their nuts to meet these qualities, they can get premier prices for their Cashew nuts”.

The project which was implemented in collaboration with the Ghana Trade and Investment Program, was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future programme.

The Executive Director added that the project evaluation served as a potent platform for beneficiaries and stakeholders to share their success, the outcome of the implementation, the lesson learned, challenges encountered, and the way forward.

The project was implemented in six communities in the West Gonja Municipality.

They include Bonyanto, Soalepe, and Tarlorpe. The rest are Achebunyor, Businu and Jonokponto.

The Executive Director indicated that before the implementation of the project, surveillance was carried out with stakeholder consultation, engagement of key actors within the cashew value-chain, so as to “introduce to them what they are doing to also prevent duplication of efforts by having several Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) doing the same thing in the value chain”.

“We engaged them in the project intervention and we got their buy-in and cooperation after the six-month and after the implementation period, we needed to share with them the outcome of the implementation”.

One of the beneficiaries, Alidu  Shahadu on behalf of his colleagues, commended Green for Change Ghana for the training and promised to make good use of the knowledge acquired to the benefit of their households and the industry.

“In fact, during the training, it was interesting to know our weaknesses and things we were not doing right. But now, we have put them behind us and to work together, to support ourselves by putting into use the knowledge we acquired from the six months training”, Alidu Shahadu explained.

An officer from the West Gonja Municipal Agriculture Department, Ezekiel Akwasi Gariba lauded the intervention describing it as an eye-opener to the farmers who have suffered at the hands of middlemen.

“And I know that from now on,  these farmers would not allow any middlemen to cheat them with their low prices again”, he stressed.

The NGO in partnership with the forest division and World Vision Ghana, distributed a total of 2,645 seedlings of Kapok, mango, and baobab for reforestation and environmental preservation.