29 FARMERS HONOURED AT ASSIN KRUWA (PAGE 23, DEC 19)

Mr Daniel Ankoma Mends, a 33-year-old farmer from Assin Dominase, was adjudged the best farmer out of 29 farmers awarded at Kruwa in the Assin South District.
For his prize, Mr Mends took home a mist blower, half packet of roofing sheets, a bicycle, wax print, pesticides, machetes, a pair of wellington boots, a radio cassette player, among other farming inputs.
In an address, the District Chief Executive, Ms Sabina Appiah-Kubi, said the Government, with the support of the Danish International Development Agency(DNIDA), was pursuing the Local Service Delivery and Governance Programme aimed at providing interventions and intermediate means of transportation to facilitate the conveyance of agricultural produce to the marketing centres.
Ms Appiah-Kubi said the Government was also scaling up credit facilities for agricultural producers and that through the micro enterprise financing, the Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing project was supporting small-scale cassava producers.
She said 13,540 farms, belonging to 12,333 farmers and covering 56,664 hectares, were sprayed in the district under the Cocoa Disease and Pests Control project.
She advised the award winners to form an association to share ideas and experience with other farmers.
She further advised them to stem the menace of bush fires on their farms and protect the environment.
The District Chief Executive appealed to owners of dogs and cats to immunise them against rabies to prevent the transmission of the disease to people they bit and the wild animals they hunted.
She commended farmers for their efforts at ensuring food security despite the enormous challenges they had to grapple with.