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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at his inauguration
Food production has increased significantly and a conscious effort has been made to improve the standard of living of our farmers, said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at his inauguration as president of the republic and commander-in-chief of Ghana. Armed Forces, on Thursday, January 7, 2021.
He said newly built warehouses across the country are storing surpluses for export to neighboring countries and the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) program has become the real stone on which the successful future of the company is being built. agriculture of Ghana.
President Akufo-Addo, who began his second term during his oath, vowed to worry about building roads that create jobs for young people.
“The last four years have taught me that Ghanaians will no longer accept poverty and deprivation as their share, but are determined to work to chart a path of growth and development for themselves.
“Establishing a strong economy and undergoing a structural transformation towards value-added activities that will generate jobs for our youth and improve their standard of living will be the main concern of my second term,” he said.
Agricultural minister
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, revealed last year that of the 80 warehouses that are being built across the country, 51 of them were ready by November 2020.
In November’s Nation Building update series on the theme: “Becoming West Africa’s Food Basket,” he said the government decided to build 80 warehouses across the country.
“I am pleased to report that of the 80s, 51 are ready to be handed over to me. We inherited a warehouse capacity of 34,000 metric tons and we can add 80,000 metric tons of capacity, ”he said.
He said the government had provided 300 vans to extension agents so they could help farmers with best agricultural practices to improve their yields.
Dr. Akoto said that the government was determined to ensure food security in the country; hence the investment, adding that the government intends to make horticulture a major source of foreign exchange earnings.
“We want horticulture to be the main source of foreign exchange earnings for Ghana. We want to change the whole narrative and we will export more. We can do it, ”he said.
Planting for food and employment
One of the transformational interventions in the agricultural sector is the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) program launched in 2017 and designed to address the myriad of problems facing the agricultural sector and remains the leading program aimed at modernizing the sector.
The objectives of the program are: to ensure the timely and adequate availability of the chosen food crops through improved productivity; provide job opportunities for the many unemployed youth; and create general awareness so that all formal workers have farms or orchards.
As of July last year, a total of 1.5 million farmers were registered in the program, an increase from the initial enrollment figure of 202,000 farmers in the starting year.
To improve post-COVID-19 food production and allow more farmers access to inputs, an additional 300,000 farmers were enrolled in the program, increasing the number of beneficiaries from the initial goal of 1.2 million to 1 , 5 million today.
The Executive Director (CEO) of the Chamber of Agribusiness of Ghana (CAG), Anthony Morrison, said that the PFJ had served the agricultural sector from a marketing perspective and had also brought to light problems in the sector, such as challenges and prospects .
He said that although it had helped create some jobs, the kind of penetration that was required to integrate the economy had not yet been felt after three years.
“This is a social intervention mechanism of the agricultural sector and its model was not done correctly to create the necessary jobs for the people in favor of the poor. Rather, it has come to help some level of medium-scale commercial farmers rather than target people, ”he said.
He said that most of the small farmers that the policy was to help did not actually experience the benefits, making it difficult to see a major impact.
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