Yara Ghana Limited, a leading name in fertilisers in Ghana has won the agro input of the year-fertiliser at the maiden Ghana Cocoa Awards held in Accra recently.
The company’s input package for cocoa which is the Asaase Wura and YaraLiva Nitrabor were shortlisted among other cocoa fertilizer inputs for the category and came out tops at the event.
The award was received by the Managing Director of Yara Ghana Limited, Mr Danquah Addo-Yobo.
He said “Yara Ghana is pleased at the recognition given it and is encouraged to continue with its support for the cocoa sector.”
He indicated that Yara Ghana had played a pioneering role in the fertiliser input sector of Ghana’s cocoa industry with the introduction of Asaase Wura cocoa fertiliser in 2005.
This venture he said involved a huge investment into an otherwise uncharted territory in the cocoa sector by then, showing Yara Ghana’s commitment to and believe in growing the industry in Ghana.
The introduction of the Asaase Wura cocoa fertiliser helped improve cocoa farmers yields and profitability quite significantly.
“Results from several demonstration farms across cocoa growing areas have shown that Asaase Wura and Nitrabor package has consistently shown an average percentage yield increase of 50 per cent for the plots that had Asaase Wura and Nitrabor applied compared to the traditional farmer practice plots ” the Managing Director said.
Yara’s success and significance to the cocoa farming community he said could also be traced to the fact that under the direction of its network of agronomists, Yara had initiated and undertaken several programmes to enable cocoa farmers achieve the best results.
These he said included capacity building for farmers and agro dealers focusing on the Yara Crop Nutrition concept which focuses on the right application of fertilizers: right nutrients, right time and right place and right rate.
“Along with our distribution and retail partners, Yara also organizes Crop Clinics and training programmes and reaches thousands of cocoa farmers every year through the Healthier Cocoa Campaigns.Several thousands of farmers have been trained over the past years under this programme” he added.
Mr Addo-Yobo further took the opportunity to acknowledge the collaboration and support of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) regarding trials on Asaase Wura and Nitrabor and the Ghana Cocoa Board and reiterated that Yara Ghana would continue to support the Ghana Cocoa Board in its drive to improve the sector.
The Ghana Cocoa Awards which is an initiative of VC Media Limited recognises and celebrates outstanding achievements in the Ghana cocoa value chain with this being the maiden edition.
BY TIMES REPORTER
