Mr. Takyi

Dominic Takyi (known as Mr. Takyi) was born in 1968 in Jenjemireja, a remote village in the Jaman South District of Ghana. At the age of 8, he was given a polio vaccination by unqualified medical personnel, which left him without the use of his left leg. Despite this challenge, Mr. Takyi started farming in 1991, adapting to his disability by sitting on a chair to weed his farm. He wasn’t able to harvest a large number of nuts until he met Wayne Tilton of Red River Foods.

he’s been able to put his two children through university and high school, build a house, and buy his own car

Mr. Tilton taught him about the importance of pruning and thinning his cashew trees, and the company even provided him with a chainsaw and protective equipment to help him do it. With help from Red River Foods, Mr. Takyi went from harvesting close to 120 bags of cashews a year to harvesting more than 230 bags annually.

Thanks to his success, he’s been able to put his two children through university and high school, build a house, and buy his own car. He also works to spread his knowledge to other farmers by teaching them how to prune and thin. Currently, Mr. Takyi is the farm manager for Kostal Farms, which has started cashew planting on 1,500 acres of land in the Bono region of Ghana.