Dr. Afriyie Akoto and an executive of Hattat Traktör
Flagbearer hopeful of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has secured a tractor manufacturing plant deal to boost mechanised farming and increase agriculture growth in the country.
This follows extensive discussions held between Dr. Akoto, former Minister of Food and Agriculture and directors of Hattat Traktör during his recent visit to Turkey where he delivered the keynote address as the special guest of honour at the African Investors Council Forum.
The discussions primarily focused on the provision of enabling environment for the Hattat Traktör business to thrive, policy formulation aimed at protecting and supporting the business as well as issues of accessibility and affordability.
After the meeting, Dr. Akoto, who is also a two-term Member of Parliament (MP) for Kwadaso Constituency in the Ashanti Region, said, “It is about time the world sees Africa as the next big destination for investment, especially in our agricultural sector. Available data points to the fact that Africa is going to feed the world by 2050.
“By establishing their manufacturing plant in Ghana, they will have full access to the ECOWAS community market and that will boost agriculture in Ghana and the West African sub-region,” Dr. Akoto noted.
Having concluded initial talks on the investment potentials in the West African sub-region, the directors of Hattat Traktör are preparing a visit to Ghana where they will officially present their proposal to the government for consideration.
Available information indicates that Dr. Akoto has already started some preparatory works for Hattat Traktör considering the importance he attaches to the agricultural sector, which he has prioritised in his campaign message as the pivot to developing the other sectors of the economy when the right investments are made into the sector.
Ghana has 3.1 million professional farmers. A few of these farmers are into mechanised farming, with the majority being smallholder farmers.
According to the 2021 edition of ‘State of Ghanaian Economy Report’ by the Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER), Ghana’s agricultural sector grew by 8.4% in 2021, the highest growth recorded in the Fourth Republic.
Advances in Agriculture Journal has revealed that, “the overall level of agricultural mechanisation in Ghana was found to be very low since averagely 77.6% of the farm operations are largely performed manually”. The study also revealed that below 20% of farm operations were mechanised in 2020.
On the modelling of the tractor power availability in Ghana, the study revealed that the number of people in Ghana employed in the service sector and the population in Ghana is key factors that affect the level of mechanical power availability for agriculture.
According to the study, the level of tractor power availability increased from 0.0207kW/ha in 2004 to 0.0588kW/ha in 2020, and is expected to increase to 0.0752kW/ha in 2025.
The study therefore, recommended that agricultural policymakers will have to design policies that help modernise agriculture through the transformation of the level from manual systems to highly mechanised systems where averagely more than 60% of the farm operations will be mechanised.
It further recommended that policy makers in Ghana should consider diversifying employment opportunities away from the service sector while encouraging more growth in the agricultural sector.
Moreover, measures to bring in more tractors while the population of the country is growing should be consciously pursued to help increase the mechanical power availability to levels that can bring about sustainable productivity.
By Samuel Boadi