The depot is expected to improve access to fertilisers at Donkorkrom, Tease and surrounding communities.

Hitherto, retailers of fertiliser products had to travel long distances by road to procure the input and that impacted negatively on farmer productivity, as it increased the prices of fertilisers.

Lower transportation cost

According to the Yara Sales Agronomist for the Eastern Region, Mr Issaka Osman, “until we teamed up with Ransboat to set up this outlet, the nearest distribution point for fertilisers was at Nkawkaw or Kumasi which is about four and five hours drive, respectively, and mostly over bad roads.”

The Marketing Assistant of Yara Ghana, Mr Kwame Okyere, stressed Yara’s commitment to support farmer productivity and profitability, which he said informed the company and its partner to bring the products closer to farmers, not only to make it more accessible but also affordable.

“Being a predominantly cereal growing area, farmers will now have easy access to the YaraMila Actyva fertiliser, which is NPK formulated, for cereals and which has been proven in trials and demonstrations to help increase yields from an average of five bags per acre to 18 bags,” he added.

He disclosed that the fertiliser company would set up a demonstration farm for maize in the area to illustrate to farmers how the traditional farmer practices unfavourably compared to the Yara protocol which when applied would help farmers in the district to become more profitable in their trade.