Kumasi, Jan 28, GNA - Trees for the Future Institute, a US-based research organization, would from next month begin a training programme on agro-forestry technology for farmers in some communities.
These include Hohoe in the Volta Region, Ada in the Greater Accra Region, Bolgatanga, Zebilla and Sandema in the Upper East Region.
Mr Lovans Owusu-Takyi, a Fellow of the Institute and Coordinator of the Programme, told the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi that they would work in collaboration with Extension Officers of the Food and Agriculture (MOFA) Ministry.
Agro-forestry technology is a land-use system that integrates trees, crops, people and animals on the same piece of land in order to get higher productivity, greater economic returns and more social benefit on sustainable basis for food security and water conservation.
He said the intervention would help to check soil degradation, deforestation, primitive agricultural practices and unsustainable agricultural land use that undermine productivity and agri-business.
The farmers, he said, would be guided on good nursery practices, inter cropping and proper propagation of fruits and medicinal trees to conserve local biodiversity.
Mr Owusu-Takyi said most chemical fertilizers used by farmers rarely improve the quality of the soil as they killed insects and microbes in soils that are needed for natural processes.
He said over 100,000 nitrogen-fixing seedlings including Casuarina, Leucaena, Cajanus cajan and Acacia, would be distributed to the farmers to increase crop yield and prevent deforestation.
A maize farm inter cropped with Leucaena trees, for example, would result in increased yield, fuel wood, organic fertilizer and high-protein animal forage all at different times of the year.
GNA
