Kotulo Mushroom project has been operating for only ten months, and its managing members and workers are already optimistic about its prospect for growth. The North West Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has spent a total of R3.6 million over a period of two financial years to get this project up and running, and this amount was for the project’s infrastructure development and production inputs for the initial three production cycles.

The project is situated in Luka village outside Rustenburg in the Bojanala Platinum District Municipality, and employs 16 locals, the majority of whom are young people. Of its six managing members, 2 are women, two youths, while two are males.

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Morocco plans to more than triple its citrus fruit exports to 1.3 million metric tons by 2018 as a development program raises output, according to Ahmed Derrab, secretary general of industry group ASPAM.

Aging groves, narrowing margins from sales to the euro-zone area, increased competition from Egypt and Turkey and growing domestic demand eroded exports of products including oranges to key markets including the European Union, Derrab said. Morocco was the fourth-biggest provider of citrus fruit imports into the EU in the period from 2009 through 2012, according to Eurostat data.

In the 1998-2011 period, Morocco’s total citrus exports averaged 528,000 tons a year, according to finance and economy ministry data. In the period that started in October and ends this month, exports fell to 380,000 tons, Derrab said.

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The Israeli Agency for International Development Cooperation (MASHAV) has held a four-day workshop for over 50 citrus farmers and Agric extension officers of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to empower them in citrus production.

The workshop, held in Cape Coast, was in partnership with the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ).

It is in fulfillment of a trilateral cooperation agreement signed in 2010 between MoFA, GIZ and MASHAV to support research and development into citrus production with the view to promoting a citrus industry in Ghana.

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Ghana is to receive 7.2 million Euro from the European Union to help with the production and export of Bananas.

Finance Minister Seth Tekper signed the financing agreement on behalf of the government, while EU Ambassador, Claude Marten initialed on behalf of the EU. The money will be used for the Banana Accompanying Measures Project (BAM).

Trade Minister Haruna Iddrisu said, “It is to improve the livelihood of banana farmers in the Greater Accra, Eastern and Volta regions.” The Minister added “it will include expansion of social amenities and basic amenities in that area to encourage them to increase volumes of production.”

The EU Ambassador also revealed that Ghana exports about 50,000 tons of bananas to the European Union.

Source: business.myjoyonline.com

Kitui County’s Mui basin has recently gained fame for huge coal deposits but a woman farmer is giving the area a new facet as the home of rare giant cassava crop.

Although, Kitui is largely known for perennial hunger, 35-year-old Zipporah Kamwathi said she had stumbled on an effective way of keeping hunger at bay.

“I can comfortably fend for my family through the cassava which we consume as food and sell to earn income,” said Kamwathi. She admitted that whenever she takes her produce to the market place it usually becomes a crowd puller due to the extra-ordinary size of the cassava.

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