Most soils in Ghana are too acidic, limiting the nutrient uptake of plants. The following video presents one easy way to measure a soil’s pH value using pH indicator strips. Knowing your soil's pH value helps to take action to improve your soil quality.

Fruit flies are a common pest damaging fruits and vegetables. The video in this practice explains how to build a safe, simple and cost effective fruit fly trap with a plastic bottle, a pheromone and an insecticide. This practice describes step by step how to build a trap to control...

Pruning is the selective removal of unproductive shoots and branches. There are several reasons why to prune a mango tree. The practice allows for light and air to be admitted into the canopy of a tree, it enhances flowering to achieve high quality fruits and it improves effective control of...

Since its introduction, the papaya mealy bug (Paracoccus marginatus) causes serious damages to papaya plantations in Ghana. Conventional control with pesticides was unsuccessful because the mealy bug has become resistant to them. A promising solution that proved to be successful is the biological control of mealy bugs using small parasitic...

Access to affordable small fish is key to achieving zero hunger and improved nutrition in Ghana’s poor urban households, a new study shows. Small fish are indeed the backbone of Ghana’s animal protein supply in the poor urban neighbourhoods of Accra (such as Nima, Chorkor, Ga Mashie and James Town) and...

Compost has many advantages. It is a well‑balanced fertilizer, it improves long term soil fertility and it helps to suppress soil borne diseases. The following video shows a good way of how to make compost in Ghana.

Due to inaccurate methods of harvesting, farmers tend to destroy the quality of mangoes and obtain reduced yields of the fruit, which results in a loss of income for farmers. Through selective harvesting techniques, mangoes are harvested in three stages from the trees based on their maturity level. Also, proper...

Abuse and misuse of insecticides is common in Africa. Although the use of pesticides in Africa represents less than 5 percent of the global total, misuse is disproportionately high. The use of insecticides is determined largely by export crops, such as cotton and cocoa. Trends are therefore dependent on world...

Cassava (Manihot Esculenta Crantz) is the third most important source of calories in the tropics, after rice and maize. Millions of people depend on cassava in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is grown by poor farmers, many of them women, often on marginal land. For those people and their...

Hay-making is the most important method of preserving forage in many countries, including tropical ones. Silage-making is highly developed in temperate countries, especially in Europe, and goes with intensification. In tropical countries, plant growth coincides with the rainy season, which sometimes makes hay-making difficult. The objective of this technology is...

The project has validated a participatory breeding approach for developing superior, mosaic disease-resistant cassava, demonstrating that it can provide a means by which farmers, plant breeders and plant pathologists could work together in an effective and inclusive manner. It also provided an environment whereby farmers made a significant and consistent...

The quality of cashew produced from country to country and region to region determines the reputation as well as the competitiveness of the product on the international market. The price that farmers may expect is directly linked to the quality of their produce. It is important; therefore, to teach farmers...

Production of high-quality cashew nuts is dependent on the application of excellent and thorough harvest and post-harvest techniques and practices. This technology is used as part of the African Cashew Initiative’s extension material. It helps farmers to understand how to approach the period just before harvesting begins and what do...

The application of good practices is an essential foundation for the establishment of a new functional and thriving cashew farm. This flip-chart (picture bloc), with its very comprehensive pictures as well as a question and answer section, describes how to better prepare an area for the establishment of a thriving...

Growing mango is full of challenges and farmers should know about them to succeed in the mango production. The more farmers know, the better they will succeed. This guide and short film shows four farmers from the Eastern Region of Ghana sharing their experiences with fruit fly control in mango...

The main challenges for farmers in semi-arid and arid areas of the tropics and subtropics are poor food security, yield instability and risk of crop failure. These are associated with the biggest physical constraint to crop production in these areas:erratic and unreliable rainfall resulting in shortages of water. Under these...

Growing mango is full of challenges and farmers should know about them to succeed in the mango production. The more farmers know, the better they will succeed. This short film (and its description) deals with a disease called Bacterial Black Spot (BBS). In 2010 it was first identified in West...

Growing mango is full of challenges and farmers should know about them to succeed in the mango production. The more farmers know, the better they will succeed. This short film (and its description) deals with a disease called Anthracnose. It is a very wide spread disease in humid environments, like...

O secador solar de milho é uma estrutura, semelhante a uma estufa, que permite secar o milho recorrendo à energia solar. Em funcionamento, a secagem demora três dias para reduzir o teor de humidade do milho de 24 para 14%. A secagem do milho reduz o risco de desenvolvimento de...

Dry-season vegetable farmers in Ghana face increased dependency on chemical fertilizer and supplementary water inputs due to decreased soil productivity caused by prolonged cultivation that has mined the soil's previously high organic matter content. Farmers also complain of increased incidence of pests and diseases. These factors increase capital and labour...