The Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND) and the Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Solutions (ISEES) have kickstarted a 2-day training workshop for young farmers in the ‘Youth and Farmers in Agroecology’ Project.
The workshop which is aimed at equipping young farmers with the necessary knowledge and skills to practice sustainable farming methods while protecting the ecosystem and environment is being held at the premises of the Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Solutions in Accra.
Day one of the workshop, saw participants having a hands-on practice on the preparation of compost (organic fertilizer), organic weedicides and organic insecticides including many others.
In an interview with Elvisanokyenews.com, the head of Climate Change and Policy Program at SYND, Patience Agyekum, explained that, her outfit gives much priority to the development of the youth in a bid to protect and preserve the environment.
According to her, the Strategic Youth Network for Development runs a lot of projects which are tailored in building the capacity of the youth while taken into consideration the vegetation and ecosystems within their jurisdiction.
“SYND is a youth serving organization in Ghana, our goal is to promote active participation of young people in the governance of our natural resources and the environmental sector.
“So we have various projects for young people in the forestry sector, around biodiversity, on climate change, energy access and we also convain a bigger platform of young individuals and other youth organizations across the country which brings us to learn and share and help us to also contribute to the national development particularly when it comes to the extratives on the environmental sector called the youth in natural resources and environmental governance platform.” She said
Touching on the Youth and Farmers in Agroecology Projects, Patience Agyekum said “we realized the importance of food, we all need food to eat and survive and as the saying goes, who controls your food controls your life”
“For us as Africans and Ghanaians, when you look back to your family line, it’s either your mother or grandmother, someone is a farmer and we see how much these farmers are being impacted by the increasing effect of climate change.”
“The Youth and Farmers in Agroecology is for us to connect people with resource persons and experts who knows about sustainable way of growing healthy and nutritious foods.” She explained
The head of Climate Change and Policy Program at SYND, disclosed that, agroecology has the tendency in controlling the impact of climate change while helping farmers to increase their yield in terms of the production of quality farm produce.
“We know that the agriculture sector also contribute a lot to global greenhouse gas emission which is causing climate change and we also know that the same sector is being affected by climate change and we know that agroecology serves as both a mitigation and adaptation component to control the impact of climate change in the agriculture sector.
“Agroecology is basically about how our forefathers farmed, how you get to understand the harmony of nature and grow your plant so in today’s training, we learned about composting, organic manure, how you can make your own organic weedicides, organic insecticides without having to rely on synthetic or inorganic fertilizers.” She disclosed
Finally, she revealed that, SYND aimd at nurturing young individuals into the agriculture sector with the hope that they will at least produce what they will consume.
” We teach the young people and also promote them to go into agriculture, they might not be cultivating 100, 50 or 20 acres of farms, but if we get them to even start growing their own food and feed their families, we believe that will also contribute to the rate of diseases and sickness because of the way we grow our foods.”
Day one of the training workshop was a huge success, with young farmers from all over the region attending to expand their knowledge and network with like-minded individuals. The SYND and ISEES are committed to supporting young farmers in their journey towards sustainable agriculture and environmental stewardship.
Source: Elvisanokyenews.com
