Yara Ghana Limited, a leading name in fertilizer dealership in Ghana, has won the Agro Input of the Year (fertiliser) at the maiden Ghana Cocoa Awards held in Accra.

The company’s input package for cocoa which is the Asaase Wura and YaraLiva Nitrabor were shortlisted among other cocoa fertilizer inputs for the category and came out tops at the event.

The award was received by the Managing Director of Yara Ghana Limited, Mr Danquah Addo-Yobo. Mr Addo-Yobo commented that Yara Ghana is pleased with the recognition.

He said Yara Ghana is encouraged to continue with its support for the cocoa sector.

 Commenting further, he indicated that Yara Ghana has played a pioneering role in the fertilizer input sector of Ghana’s cocoa industry with the introduction of Asaase Wura cocoa fertilizer in 2005.

This venture involved a huge investment into otherwise uncharted territory in the cocoa sector by then, showing Yara Ghana’s commitment to and believe in growing the industry in Ghana.

The introduction of the Asaase Wura cocoa fertilizer helped improve cocoa farmers yields and profitably quite significantly.

"Results from several demonstration farms across cocoa growing areas have shown that Asaase Wura and Nitrabor package has consistently shown an average percentage yield increase of 50% for the plots that had Asaase Wura and Nitrabor applied compared to the traditional farmer practice plots,” the Managing Director said.

He said Yara’s success and significance to the cocoa farming community can also be traced to the fact that under the direction of its network of agronomists, Yara has initiated and undertaken several programmes to enable cocoa farmers achieve the best results. These have included capacity building for farmers and agro dealers focusing on the Yara Crop Nutrition concept which focuses on the right application of fertilizers: right nutrients, right time and right place and right rate.

"Along with our distribution and retail partners, Yara also organizes Crop Clinics and training programmes and reaches thousands of cocoa farmers every year through the Healthier Cocoa Campaigns. Several thousand farmers have been trained over the past years under this programme," he further added.

Mr. Addo-Yobo further took the opportunity to acknowledge the collaboration and support of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) regarding trials on Asaase Wura and Nitrabor and the Ghana Cocoa Board and reiterated that Yara Ghana will continue to support the Ghana Cocoa Board in its drive to improve the sector.

The Ghana Cocoa Awards, which is an initiative of VC Media Limited, recognises and celebrates outstanding achievements in the Ghana cocoa value chain, with last weekend’s event being its maiden edition.

The finalists were drawn from a total of 161 entries filed by individuals, companies and institutions operating within Ghana's cocoa value chain.

Over 30 awards were up for grabs in various categories including Agro Input, Processing, Haulage, Manufacturing, Packaging and Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Media, Consumption promotion, Sustainability and Leadership.