President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says his administration’s flagship programme, Planting for Food and Jobs, is yielding desired results.
He said the country has moved from importing to exporting food produce to neighbouring countries, indicating it was hitherto crippling the agricultural sector.
“For the first time in many years, there is an abundance of food. And I notice that the prices of foodstuff are low and in some cases, there is clout. We are currently exporting plantain to some of our neighbours, quite a turnaround from when I was lamenting two years ago that we were importing plantain from Cote d’Ivoire.”
“We also did not import a single grain of maize this year. It is not often we have such good news and it must mean if you invest in agriculture, you get results. Planting for Food and Jobs is working and I look forward to rice joining the list of foods stuff we are no longer importing,” the President said at his encounter with the journalists at the Jubilee House Wednesday.”
The Planting for Foods and Jobs programme was launched by the president last year to help address the declining growth of the agricultural sector of the country.
As part of the programme, Ghanaians have been admonished to take up agriculture as a full-time business to enable the country to produce enough to feed itself and for export.
Under the programme, which was started with a seed capital of GHS560 million, about 200,000 farmers have been provided with fertilisers as well as other farming inputs.
Spanning a period of five years, the programme also hopes to create jobs to deal with the unemployment challenges in the country.
According to the Agric Minister, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the programme has created some 745,000 jobs in its first year alone.
President Akufo-Addo says the best is yet to come.
“I also look forward to meat and fish becoming abundant under the Rearing for Food and Jobs programme and our farmers being rich and satisfied with their lot in life. I encourage all of us to look on farming as the serious business as it is,” he said.
Radical measures are being taken to establish a solid infrastructure for the agricultural sector, the President indicated.
He cited the availability of a significant number of tractors and the enhancement of agric mechanisation centres, the construction of 80 warehouses this year for the storage of surplus food, the revival of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company and the recent establishment of the Commodities Exchange.
“All these are being done to modernize and transform Ghanaian agriculture to serve as a major growth pole for the economy.”
Cocoa
Despite the dramatic decline in world market prices for cocoa, President Akufo-Addo said maintaining the producer price of the commodity paid to farmers is a sign of his administration’s commitment to them.
“We are on course to realizing the one million tone mark for our cocoa production and seeing to the increasing domestic processing of the product.”
“Our alliance with Cote d’Ivoire to change the dynamics of the global cocoa industry is also on course to enable us, the producers obtain an increasing share of the industry’s value chain. It is good news for our farmers.”
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