Kumasi May 5, 2008, About 290 Training Service Providers are undergoing Training at an Orientation Workshop to enable them to provide adequate training to the 60,000 Small Holder Farmers targeted under the Agriculture Project. At the workshop in Kumasi, the CEO of MiDA Mr Martin Eson-Benjamin, re-iterated that agricultural transformation is a key strategic goal of the MCA Ghana Program. “We are entering into a force to train Farmers to plan, change mindsets, and re-orient them to enter into Commercial Farming”, he said. He added, MiDA would assist farmers by improved transportation networks to link markets, providing resources to help them improve output, farm yields, and product quality. Mr. Eson-Benjamin said the move is aimed at directly alleviating poverty among over 230,000 Ghanaians directly and that, the spillover is expected to enhance the livelihood and welfare of about one million Ghanaians with an annual Economic Rate of Return, of about 20%.

The CEO explained that MiDA had engaged the services of three consultants, International Centre for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC), Adventist Development and Relief Agency, (ADRA) and ACDI-Voca to serve as Regional Implementing Consultants (RIC) to be in charge of the training at the Northern, Afram and Southern Intervention Zones respectively.

Mr Eson-Benjamin noted the growth potential of Ghana in agriculture. The MCA Ghana Program is therefore to help in unlocking the significant agricultural production potentials in the selected Districts; and to transform agricultural communities which are mostly rural into becoming self-sufficient and self-sustaining agricultural production and processing centers.