The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), with support from Trust Africa, an international donor organisation, has organised two days training workshop for leaders of small scale farmers from Northern Region, Greater Accra and the Volta Region on budget process and advocacy. The workshop, held in Accra, was aimed at equipping the farmers with skills, which would enable them take budget process effectively to ensure that their demands and interest were met in the annual national budgets. Before the start of the training, Madam Victoria Adongo, the Programme Coordinator of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, in her welcome address, asked the trainees to take the training seriously as they were expected to replicate what they would in their various districts and communities. "The workshop is to develop the capacity of the farmers in the budgetary process as a policy tool for national development," she said, and urged the participants to pay attention and ask for clarification of any issues they didn’t understand since the objective of the programme was to equip them with skills that will enable them effectively advocate for adequate resource allocation through the national budget. Topics discussed included, the budget process and analysis, budget tracking and monitoring and budget advocacy. The consultant who is also an expert on Budget analysis, Sylvester Bagooro, in his presentation said "To identify a good budget, farmers need to look for the consistency of how the budget interacts with the medium term and the long term development plan". He indicated that, there were many ways by which farmers could influence budgetary allocation to the sector, citing submission of inputs in the form of reports, documents and letters to the elected representatives in parliament and contributing in national budget forum by the Ministry of Finance. Farmers, he said, could also advocate through media discussions, public debates and other advocacy platforms. "Monitoring of projects and programmes, to provide feedback to policy makers and collate views, case studies and stories on situation of small scale farmers, to feed into policy review is another tool," he stated. Mr Benjamin Kanati, a participant said the training has given him more insight into what the budget process entails. Organisers said for most of the participant especially the women, it was the first time they were receiving any training on what is require of them and the role of government in changing their lives. According to one of the women, Kumatse Beatrice, "we women are the backbone of small scale farming in Ghana yet we benefit the least in agricultural sector support like fertilizer" Mr. Charles Nyaaba, the Programme Officer of the association, said, "This is a continuing program, and PFAG shall continue to strive to ensure that greater number of small scale farmers in the country understand such critical as budget matters through continues trainings and workshops". He added that the only way Ghana can achieve food security is for government to consciously come up with policies that will cut down cost of production in farming. Source: Myjoyonline.com/Ghana