Mr. Abubakar Afful; one of the resource persons at the workshop
Fairtrade Africa has called on journalists to partner them in reporting the plight of farmers in the sub region.
The call was made Wednesday when the West Africa Network of Fairtrade Africa collaborated with the Ghana Journalists Association to hold a Capacity Building Workshop for journalists in the Ashanti region.
The workshop highlighted issues relating to living income and living wage for farmers.
Before the Kumasi event, a similar workshop was held in the capital Accra.
Abubakar Afful, one of the speakers at the workshop highlighted the important role journalists could play in improving the livelihoods of Ghanaian farmers and encouraged them to give agriculture and issues affecting farmers priority in their news and current affairs programming.
President of the Ashanti regional branch of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA); Kingsley Hope expressed gratitude to Fairtrade for the opportunity to learn and called for further collaborations aimed at strengthening the capacity of media personnel to enable them champion the cause of farmers and other players of the Agriculture value chain.
Ashanti GJA President Kingsley Hope and some journalists who participated in the capacity building workshop
Mr. Hope also encouraged his colleague journalists to take interest in reporting issues of Agriculture and the environment stressing the impact of climate change.
Fairtrade Africa is an independent non-profit umbrella organization and a member of the wider International Fairtrade movement. Established in 2005, Fairtrade Africa is owned by its members, who are African Producer Organisations (POs). These POs produce traditional export commodities such as coffee, cocoa, tea, cotton, bananas, mango and non-traditional commodities including shea butter and rooibos tea and are certified against international Fairtrade standards.
Currently, Fairtrade Africa represents over 1,050,000 producers and 628 POs across 33 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Fairtrade supports members to strengthen their organisations in line with Fairtrade standards, helps them improve and increase members’ ability to access Fairtrade markets and also engage members to advocate for their interests and take active ownership of the global Fairtrade system.
