As part of efforts to ensure food security in the light of the international fertilizer crisis, Organic Fertilizer Guidelines for Ghana, have been unveiled to help improve the soil fertility status in the country.
The guideline will be an essential tool for fertilizer inspectors and analysts who will regulate the provision of high-quality organic products to farmers.
It is also envisaged that the guideline will be a helpful reference material for the organic fertilizer sector and all relevant stakeholders.
The Acting Director of CSIR, Soil Research Institute, Dr. Edward Yeboah, who made this remark at the handing over of Organic Fertilizer Guidelines for Ghana and awareness creation ceremony held in Accra, noted the decline in soil fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa is a significant challenge for sustainable agriculture.
“This is mainly due to the poor inherent parent materials through which the soil is developed, such as granite and phyllite. These parent materials are low in primary minerals needed for crops.”
Dr. Edward Yeboah
Proper soil management improves farm productivity
Dr. Edward Yeboah said the need for sustainable intensification of agriculture and the increasingly high-cost inorganic fertilizer in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Ghana, in particular, has informed the need to encourage farmers to adopt a hybrid soil management practice.
“Proper soil management has the potential to improve farm productivity. There is a need to provide effective guidelines to regulate the industry concerning the quality of organic fertilizer. The application rates of most organic fertilizers to specific crops are still a challenge. The government recognizes awareness of the need to use an organic fertilizer through the Planting of Food and Job fertilizer subsidy.”
Dr. Edward Yeboah
He also appealed to the government and their development partners to ensure the availability of organic fertilizer guidelines to help improve the soil fertility status in the country.
In his remark, the Director of Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), Mr. Eric Bentsil Quaye, stressed the need to use top quality inputs to help combat land degradation.
“The organic fertilizer guidelines to be presented to the PPRSD will help us continue raising awareness at industry and farm levels relative to the benefits of producing and using top quality inputs to transform the output market and the whole agriculture and food sector.”
Mr. Eric Bentsil Quaye
Fertilizer guidelines developed through partnership
It has become imperative that a guideline for organic fertilizers be developed to complement the Fertilizer Act and Regulations for the fertilizer sector, largely skewed towards the inorganic fertilizer, which forms a large percentage of the fertilizers used in Ghana.
Against this background, the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) of the MoFA as the national regulator of fertilizers, requested the assistance of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) with USAID as sponsors to develop the Organic Fertilizer Guidelines for Ghana.
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