By Rosemary Wayo, GNA
     Savelugu (N/R), May 17, GNA – The Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC), in partnership with the Regional Advisory Information and Network Systems (RAINS) has held a capacity building workshop to train smallholder farmers on the seasonal weather forecast.
     The day’s workshop, held at Savelugu, was aimed at providing weather information to farmers to adapt to climate change to generate and disseminate acquired knowledge on the topic.
     The farmers, drawn from various communities in the Savelugu Municipality of the Northern Region, were taken through participatory session to understand seasonal weather forecast, and how to calculate and determine which seasons were appropriate to grow crops.
     The initiative formed part of the Climate Information Made Available to Entrepreneurial (CLIMATE) formers project.
     The 15 month-long projects funded by the African Development Bank, sought to enhance access to and integrate climate information into the practices of small holder farmers.
     Mrs Francisca Martey, Deputy Director in charge of research and applied meteorology at the Ghana Meteorological Service, who schooled participants on how to determine rainfall and temperature, said knowing the seasonal weather forecast could help farmers plan their farming activities.Â
     She noted that participatory integrated agricultural services with farmers also enabled them to use rainfall history to calculate the risk involved in planting at a particular time, and decide when and what to plant.Â
     She said “With the variability in rainfall, farmers have to take rainfall data and anything concerning weather very serious to boost their farming activities and output.”
     Mr Abdul-Razak Alhassan, Project Coordinator at RAINS said the CLIMATE project was intended to enhance the skills of farmers to improve resilience to the risks of climate change on household farmers in the northern part of the country.    Â
Miss Grace Biniyam Kursah, Programmes Manager at CFTC said the project targeted 70 per cent women in farming, given the difficulties they encounter as smallholder farmers and their vulnerability compared to men.
     She disclosed that the project would procure gardening equipment and seedlings for farmers to cultivate vegetables during the dry season.
GNA