Grow West Africa

15/10/2026

GROW West Africa is delighted to host this course in Ghana implemented by IFOAM - Organics International. https://www.ifoam.bio/agroecology-and-organic-agriculture-leadership-course-ghana.
https://www.ifoam.bio/agroecology-and-organic-agriculture-leadership-course-ghana

The Agroecology Promotion Programme (APP) Capacity Building presents the Agroecology and Organic Agriculture Leadership Course, a transformative learning journey designed to empower current and future leaders in the field of agroecology.

10/09/2026

Why is one of GROW West Africa's core programmes called From Soil to Soul?🌱

Because we believe the chain is real:

Healthy soil → nutrient-dense food → nourished people → stronger communities → better land stewardship → healthier soil.

It is a cycle, not a line. And it begins in the ground.

Our From Soil to Soul programme works with farming households across our communities to make this connection practical combining agroecological soil management with household nutrition education.

Because soil health and human health are not separate problems with separate solutions.
They are one connected reality.

Share this if you believe the food we grow and the health of our communities are inseparable. 🌱

09/09/2026

09/09/2026

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08/09/2026

Welcome to Wurompo — where GROW West Africa's work becomes real. 📍 Wenchi District, Bono Region, Ghana. 🌱

Our demonstration farm is a working agroecological system not a showpiece, but a living classroom.

When farmers visit, they walk through:
🌱 Agroforestry plots at different stages of establishment
🪱 Compost bays from fresh material to finished product
🌿 Cover crop beds and soil comparison plots side by side
🫙 A seed saving demonstration using open-pollinated varieties

Every training session begins here. Not in a room. In the soil.

Because you cannot understand agroecology from a diagram.
You have to feel it in your hands. 🌱

Share this with anyone who has ever wanted to see agroecology in practice in West Africa.

07/09/2026

Climate change is already affecting farms across West Africa. Longer dry spells. More intense rains. Higher temperatures. 🌡️🌍

The farms best surviving these changes are not the ones with the most purchased inputs.
They are the ones with the healthiest soils.

Here is why:

💧 Soil with high organic matter holds more water between rain events
🕸️ Intact mycorrhizal networks give plant roots access to deep soil moisture
🪱 Earthworm activity allows rainfall to infiltrate instead of running off
🌱 Living soil biology communicates drought stress signals between plants

We have focused on drought-resistant seeds for decades.
We need to be talking about drought-resistant soils.

At GROW West Africa, restoring soil health is our climate adaptation strategy.
The evidence is in the soil. 🌱

Share this with a farmer facing longer dry seasons. 🌾

03/09/2026

There is an underground internet beneath your farm. 🕸️🌱

It is called the mycorrhizal network a web of hair-thin fungal filaments that connect plant roots beneath the surface.

Here is what this network does:

🧫 Expands plant roots: fungi extend a plant's effective root system up to 1,000 times further into the soil reaching water and nutrients no root could access alone
🕸️ Connects different plants: carbon, water, and nutrients can transfer between plants through the shared fungal network
🌱 Builds soil structure: the fungi produce a sticky protein called glomalin that holds soil particles together giving healthy soil its crumbly, water-holding texture
💧 Shares stress signals: when one plant detects drought or pest attack, it can signal neighbouring plants through the network

This network is destroyed by deep ploughing, fungicides, and monocultures.

It is restored by minimal tillage, crop diversity, compost, and cover crops the practices at the heart of agroecology.

Healthy soil is alive. And this is who lives in it. 🌱

02/09/2026

Food security means having enough to eat.
Food sovereignty means having the right to decide HOW your food is grown, by whom, in what way, and for whose benefit.

West Africa's farming communities have thousands of years of knowledge about feeding themselves from their land. This knowledge built diverse, resilient food systems adapted to local soils, climates, and cultures.

Many agricultural development programmes of the last sixty years bypassed this knowledge bringing external models designed for different ecologies and different economies.

At GROW West Africa, we believe that real food security is only possible when communities have sovereignty over their food systems.

We do not tell farmers what to grow.
We build the knowledge infrastructure that helps communities make their own informed decisions about their food.

That is what food sovereignty looks like in practice. 🌱
Share this if you believe communities should define their own food systems.

31/08/2026

Did you know that for thousands of years, West African farmers were also plant breeders? 🌾

Every season, farmers would observe their fields which plants grew strongest, produced the most, survived the dry spell, resisted disease. They saved seed from those plants, replanted them, shared them with neighbours.

This is how hundreds of locally adapted varieties of sorghum, cowpea, millet, yam, and vegetables developed across West Africa not in a laboratory, but in farmers' fields, over generations.

Today, this knowledge and these varieties are at risk.

Commercial hybrid seeds which cannot be saved and replanted are gradually replacing farmer-bred open-pollinated varieties that took millennia to develop.

At GROW West Africa, we integrate seed saving and open-pollinated variety selection into our farmer training programmes.

Because the seed is not just an input.
It is a living archive of everything a farming community has learned about its land. 🌱

Share this with someone who has never thought about where their seeds come from. 🌾

28/08/2026

Why do farmers in West Africa grow multiple crops together in the same field? 🌾🌿

The answer goes deeper than tradition. There is biology behind it.

When different crops grow together, they:
🌱 Use water from different soil depths less competition, more total capture
🌱 Fix nitrogen from the air (legumes) for the crops beside them
🌱 Create shade that reduces soil moisture loss
🌱 Disrupt pests that target monocultures
🌱 Build stronger fungal networks in the soil that feed all the plants

Traditional intercropping across West Africa is not just cultural habit.
It is ecological intelligence developed over generations of close observation.

Science is still catching up with what West African farmers already knew.

Happy Friday from GROW West Africa's field. 🌱