Most innovative farmer of Upper East Ghana wins Motor Tricycle
November 09, 2012.
The winners of the Upper East Ghana Farmer Innovation Contest 2012 were celebrated on Farmers’ Day in Paga, 2 November 2012. The first prize (a motor tricycle) went to John Akugre Anyagre, a farmer from Tilli, for finding ways to treat animal wounds and store onion seeds by processing a local herb called Barakuk. The second prize (a motor cycle) was awarded to Abdul Rhaman Abieli from Missiga who discovered that Striga, a problematic weed, can be controlled with onion residues. Joseph Abarike Azumah, a fish farmer from Zuarungu, won the third prize (a water pump) for having developed a fish farming system in which fish are fed with local products and ‘waste water’ is recycled as fertilizer and irrigation water. The awards had a total value of approximately 2000 Euros.
In his speech on Farmer’s Day, Tobias Wünscher, ZEF senior researcher and coordinator of the Farmers' Contest pointed out: ‘What we have seen in this first round of the contest is surely only the tip of an iceberg. The awards are an acknowledgement for the outstanding work of the winners, but also a motivation for others to be creative and experimental, and to share their work in future rounds with fellow farmers.’ Subject to funding, the contest will be repeated in 2013 and 2014.
The Farmer Innovation Contest was initiated by ZEF and implemented together with Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA). Its objective is to identify locally developed farmer innovations which can potentially complement existing extension packages after further scientific evaluation. Local innovations have the advantage that they are generally adapted to the conditions in which a farmer operates.
The Farmer Innovation Contest is part of the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL). It is funded by the German Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF).
