East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation (EWS-KT), an independent non-profit organization that empowers smallholder vegetable farmers through practical agronomic training and climate-smart practices, is 10 years old.
Realising a good seed alone could not earn the farmer the returns that he or she needs, the founder, Simon N. Groot, a Dutch agronomist, set up a foundation that is East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer to provide an extension work to train the farmers on techniques that the farmers can use to grow the high quality vegetable seeds and the inputs that they invest in their farms.
Improving smallholder vegetable farmers’ livelihoods, the Foundation focused on the mutual benefit of farmers by developing smallholders’ technical expertise, introducing improved agricultural inputs, and driving market development.
This is achieved through the various demo sites that provide hands-on technical knowledge for the smallholder farmers in the country.
A decade of impacting technical knowledge into farmers, Today, the foundation has been established in ten (10) countries across the globe.
In a speech delivered by the Country Manager of East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation, Ghana, Jemima Aku Djah, the foundation works
directly with farming communities in Thailand, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Myanmar, the Philippines, Indonesia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana.
Giving the reasons for celebrating the foundation’s decade anniversary, the Country Manager said the foundation has closed the gap between seed and skills. According to her, many smallholder farmers have access to good seeds but lack the technical knowledge to get the best yield from them.
Interestingly, she said the foundation does not employ expensive technology, but rather simple and already-made materials from the localities and homes, like rice straw, bamboo, etc., to improve yields.
Moreover, she mentioned that the foundation brings opportunities to underdeveloped areas where farmers experience low yields and limited access to knowledge and inputs.
She added that the foundation’s training materials are developed with Wageningen University and Research, and other experts are available in many languages on the GrowHow platform. This research is tested in tropical fields across the world.
Furthermore, the foundation set a target of one million farmers between 2021 and 2025, and it has achieved over nine hundred thousand (900,000).
Lastly, she said the foundation connects training to markets, because farmers who grow more produce need an available market to sell their produce.
Narrowly, EWS-KT has trained about thirty thousand (30,000) smallholder vegetable farmers since inception with 2 learning centres in Ghana. However, there are countless demonstration farms in the five regions of operation.
Indeed, a great achievement worth celebrating. We say Ayekoo to East-West Seed Knowledge Foundation for such a great achievement in contributing to improving food security and food independence.
