Small-scale vegetable farmers in parts of Accra have undergone a two-week intensive training in basic financial management and quality control to enhance the quality of produce they put on the market for consumers. In all, 72 farmers drawn from Medie, Dzorwulu and Spintex Road participated in the two-week training programme which laid emphasis on basic farm accounting, budgeting, costing and planning to improve their financial transactions. The programme also took the farmers through best quality control measures from stages of land preparation, cultivation and post-harvest handling. The farmers were also given directions on how to produce quality vegetables with minimum residual levels to ensure that the produce is also free from pathogenic contamination so as to attract premium prices. The programme was an initiative of Eden Tree Ghana Limited, a vegetable marketing, processing and packaging company, with funding from United States African Development Foundation (USADF) through their project implementing partners, Development Solutions Center (DSC) in Ghana. DSC also provided technical guidance and coordination to ensure the successful implementation of the project. Mrs Catherine Krobo Edusei, Managing Director of Eden Tree Ghana Limited, said the exercise was aimed at giving consumers healthy vegetables by providing the needed training for the farmers. She said the programme is a combination of theoretical and practical methods of teaching, taking into consideration the background of the participants. Mrs Krobo Edusei was convinced that the training would enhance the quality of products for the benefit of consumers. Mr Francis Konu, Deputy Programmes Manager of DSC, advised participants to put the lessons learnt into practice to enable them to improve upon their produce. He said society was now dynamic and there was the need to be abreast with emerging market strategies and technologies, hence the training. Mr Konu urged the farmers to share the knowledge acquired with other farmers who could not participate in the programme.Source: GNA