The Hon Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has disclosed that the Government through his ministry want to break the neck of mono cropping spearhead by the cocoa industry to bring in more money in eight to ten years as being done in Cote D’Ivoire .
The minister said the cocoa sector has single handedly sustained the Ghanaian economy for over 130 years and there is the need to diversify it to bring in more cash crops to augment the industry. “Cocoa brings us 2.5 billion dollars a year but if we add other cash crops like coconut, cashew, coffee, palm oil, Shea butter and others we can make about eight times what cocoa is giving us within the next ten years.
As a result, the National Tree and Crops Authority has been charged to come out with modalities and schemes to rope in these other cash crops to earn us more foreign exchange”. The minister intimated that Cote D’Ivoire earns about 15 billions dollars annually through diversification and thinks Ghana can do same because we have better conditions and opportunities than them.
He asserted that, this will be done by our peasant farmers whose efforts have seen the sustainability of the cocoa Industry for that past one hundred and thirty years.
“We believe our small scale farmers can handle this one too .All what we need to do is to provide the inputs,services, policies, programs, training for the them like we have been doing in the cocoa sector for them to leverage the opportunities.
The minister said when this government took over in 2017, the Agric sector was almost down in every sector. For instance; maize, rice, sorghum, tubers, vegetable and the rest were almost gone. He disclosed that the EU had banned Ghana from exporting vegetables as a result of our refusal to comply with the laid down rules and standards.
There was low supply of fertilizer, few extension officers, few improved seeds. All farmers service centers were closed down, few ware- houses, no tractors and so on. But with the introduction of Planting For Food and Jobs the other modules, about 2,000,000(2m ) farmers have come on board and grown the five modules successfully.
He indicated that all the sectors ; vegetables, tubers, cereals, cash crops, poultry and livestock have seen dramatic upturn from 2017 todate. On the issue of fertilizer he told the press that his government had stepped up supply and given subsidy which is not done in any West African countries.
He however agreed that due to COVID-19 the commodity had seen price hikes beyond government control but still government is doing its best to ensure supply to farmers. The minister gave out this information when he met the Press in Accra on Sunday, 29th August ,2021. To buttress his points, he showed statistics and pictorial presentation to the newsmen with verifiable facts and figures.
He touched almost all sectors of his ministry like construction of warehouses, irrigation, improved seeds, extension services, vehicles for the regional offices, dams support for the poultry and live stock sectors, etc.
Source: Nana Poku / johnawuniktv@gmail.com
