Development Project of agroecology training courses at the Gagnoa-Lakota Training Center)

The Gagnoa-Lakota Training Centre is a public structure belonging to the National Agency for Rural Development Support (ANADER). Its main mission is to train ANADER staff, as well as supervisory technicians, farmers, NGO technical teams, informal groups, cooperators and breeders.

The training modules offered by the center focus on the sustainability of different crops (coffee, cocoa, etc.). These training courses contribute to the fight against poverty, job creation, the reduction of food insecurity, the marketing of agricultural products locally, and the provision of quality supervisory staff for producers.

The Gagnoa-Lakota Training Centre, which provides training in sustainable cocoa and coffee farming, has already invested in a number of agroecological practices, such as the Agroforestry System (SAF).

The project's support is a major asset for continued production of the coffee-cocoa pairing in the years to come. The project will also strengthen and enhance the center's training capabilities in a highly complex climatic context, coupled with the scarcity of quality land.

This project will strengthen the center's training capacities and skills, with the introduction of new teaching units at the center, such as beekeeping, improved traditional poultry farming and small ruminant (sheep) rearing.

These new activities will reinforce the existing teaching units, which are committed to the agroecological approach. The project will help the center to operate as a system through its various production units. For example, bees to pollinate flowers, and the integration of improved traditional poultry farming and small ruminant (sheep) rearing to enhance the agroecological performance of the project beneficiaries' agricultural production sites.

All this will help optimize production while creating added value. The management of these production sites will encourage biological control within the production ecosystem, thus limiting the use of chemical pesticides, which will contribute to the preservation of the environment and biodiversity. All this will be made possible by strengthening the technical and pedagogical capacities of the center's trainers and managers.