Yara Ghana Limited, a leading name in fertilizers in Ghana, has won the Agro-Input of the Year Fertilizer award 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, held recently.

The award was received by the Managing Director of Yara Ghana Limited, Mr. Danquah Addo-Yobo.

Mr Addo-Yobo remarked that Yara Ghana was pleased with the recognition given it and was encouraged to continue with its support for the cocoa sector.

He said Yara Ghana had 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 an otherwise uncharted territory in the cocoa sector by then, showing Yara Ghana’s commitment to and belief in growing the industry.

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 the 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 noted.

He said Yara’s success and significance to the cocoa farming community could also be traced to the fact that under the direction of its network of agronomists, Yara had initiated and undertaken several programmes to enable cocoa farmers to achieve the best results.

These have included capacity building for farmers and agro dealers focusing on the Yara Crop Nutrition concept, which focused 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," he said.

"Several thousands of farmers have been trained over the past years under this programme."

Mr. Addo-Yobo acknowledged 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 would 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 this being the maiden edition.

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

More than 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.