Ghanaian president launches initiative to boost agriculture

Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Wednesday launched a national agricultural program aimed at ensuring food security and creation of 750,000 jobs in both direct and indirect employment.

Dubbed "Planting for Food and Jobs", the campaign, which will be anchored on the pillars that will transform agriculture, the provision of improved seeds and supply of fertilizers, plans to use modern methods to change the lives of many within the shortest possible time.

President Akufo-Addo noted that if Ghana was to make any meaningful change in the lives of the people, efforts must be directed at agriculture, as the majority of the citizens could only feel a change in their lives when agriculture was developed.

"Ghana has the unique potential to feed its growing population, meet the raw material requirements of our processing industries, achieve food security, and compete successfully as a leading supplier to countries around us and beyond," he told the gathering at Goaso, some 377 km north of the national capital, Accra.

He said his government's vision would be to modernize agriculture, improve production efficiency, achieve food security, and profitability for farmers, all aimed at significantly increasing agricultural productivity.

Additionally, a value-addition strategy aimed at rapidly ramping up agro-processing and developing new and stable markets for products will be pursued.

Akufo-Addo said the use of technology in the Planting for Food and Jobs program would ensure the effective distribution of improved seeds and fertilizers, as well as a significant improvement in extension service delivery to farmers.

He said the government intended to construct a 1,000 metric tons capacity warehouse in each of the 216 districts to handle produce as well as to store the anticipated surpluses under the planting for food and jobs campaign.

The Canadian government is supporting the initiative with 125 million Canadian dollars over a five-year period while the World Bank has also pledged support of 50 million U.S. dollars for this year alone. Endit