To increase cashew nut production in the municipality, the Sunyani West Municipal Assembly has started a scheme to give 160,000 improved cashew seedlings to 1,450 registered farmers at Odumase in the Bono Region.
The government’s flagship programme, Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD), one of the five modules of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) project, is linked to the distribution of cashew seedlings.
To get the seedlings to the farmers’ front doors, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) assembly department established five different nurseries throughout the town.
The nursery locations are in the district capital of Odumase, Ayakomaso, Fiapre, and two different sites there.
The assembly is expected to distribute all 160,000 seedlings to the registered farmers in five days.
The assembly has provided enhanced cashew seedlings to more than 3,000 farmers in the region since the launch of the PERD programme.
The assembly has resolved to invest in cashew production over the next five years in order to turn the municipality into a regional hub for the product.
The Sunyani West Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Evans Kusi Boadum, said the PERD programme was a game changer because it focused on the promotion of tree crops during his remarks during the introduction of the upgraded cashew seedlings.
He claimed that one of the program’s most important advantages was its potential to handle the crucial problem of the nation’s ability to earn foreign exchange.
When President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo mentioned Ghana Beyond Aid, according to Mr. Boadum, he meant that all of those little things added up would significantly raise citizens’ income levels.
For his part, the Sunyani West Municipal Director of Agriculture, Adams Buabeng, explained that “Though the focus of the PERD programme is on the development of tree crops such as cashew, coffee, oil palm, coconut, mango and rubber, the Sunyani West Municipality chose cashew because it is in the agro ecological zone which favourably supports cashew cultivation.”
He said since the inception of the programme in the municipality, many farmers had been supported with cashew seedlings, explaining that evidence available suggested that the beneficiaries were doing very well.