Participants of the GhanaVeg Agronomy training are ready to be certified as Super Trainers to train other farmers by the end of November after a scheduled test.

Meanwhile, about 20 participants have been taken through another session of agronomy training with focus on Fertilization and Adult Learning in preparation for their last training session in November.

Fertilization Session

Participants had an in-depth session on challenges farmers face on the field in the quest of applying fertilizer to their crops. The science of applying fertilizer was discussed with ideas from facilitators and participants. During the session, the science and factors needed to be established as a farmer before applying fertilizer was appreciated by participants. Some of the factors needed to be considered in the application of fertilizer were soil type, the season of planting, climate, types of fertilizer, best method or types of application among others.

This could not be done without assisting trainees to understand how to determine the level of fertilizer in the soil with some soil samples participants brought from various farmer fields. Participants were taught the process and instruments needed to engage in calculating the level of fertilizers in soil samples.

In practice, they calculated the Nitrogen level in samples by mixing an amount of soil and water to settle. The settled mixture of soil and water was filtrated and tested to get the amount of Nitrogen level in the soil.  This was repeated severally to determine the presence of Nitrogen before, during and after cultivation. This exercise will help to determine how much adequate fertilizer a farmer requires for productive production.

Adult Learning Session

Another session of the training was Adult Learning. Adult learning was a component added to the training to equip participants with the technique to further transfer acquired knowledge to farmers who will in turn train their colleague farmers. Participants participated in an exercise to ascertain the learning styles of people. As a result of this, participants realized their learning styles. Participants understood the different styles of learning such as the pragmatist (those who think and Do), the theorist (those people who think and watch) the activist (those who feel and do) and the reflector (those who feel and watch). With these knowledge and style of learning, participants will maintain a closer relationship with their trainees as they go about their daily activities to train others. This will help build capacity of farmers for a healthy vegetable sector.

This is in connection with GhanaVeg’s vision of seeing a professionalized vegetable sector where quality means healthy. We encouraged interested participants to register for a try- out of GhanaVeg’s E-Learning modules at www.ghanaveg-e-learning.org. Kindly register and follow the first two modules on pest and disease management and fertilization.

GhanaVeg commenced an intensive Agronomy training of Super Trainers with facilitators from Wageningen University and Research to support Agronomist with technical and hands-on training within the vegetable sector.

Participant’s Perspective of Trainings

Zackari Musa, one of the participants shared his experience with GhanaVeg. Zack as affectionately called among his colleague, expressed his satisfaction about the training so far. According to him, the training has been interactive with lots of group discussions, assignments, field work and simple lab skill check for field analysis. “More importantly for me is the dedicated GhanaVeg E-learning modules. It is another avenue for us to learn outside scheduled training”

Worth mentioning is the incredible social media page (WhatsApp) that has been created for constant interaction among us (trainees) outside the official training. “You know how this helps us? When we face any situation on the field which we are not familiar with we post it so that other colleagues who have encountered that can assist or better still the facilitators provide solution to our troubles. I love the page”