Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto
The immediate past Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, will today, March 13, 2023, at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), deliver a public lecture on “The future of the economy of Ghana.”
The event will start at about 14:00 GMT and will see Dr. Akoto share insights into building the agricultural sector into a bedrock for financing the development of other sectors of the economy.
At an encounter with a group of editors and senior journalists in Accra on Saturday, March 11, 2023, Dr. Akoto said the potential in the agricultural sector is huge, believing that the sector has the prospect to turn around the fortunes of Ghana and permanently eliminate the syndrome of going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whenever there is distress in the economy.
Dr. Akoto, who has set his eyes on the flagbearer position of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) but is yet to officially declare his intention to contest, noted that at the core of his vision for Ghana is the prioritisation of public resources to the agricultural sector.
“Agriculture by far has the biggest potential to turn around the fortunes of this country. It is not gold or oil or any other resource. The potential is so huge. We have a very fortunate situation and you may not be aware. There is something I’ve learned about Ghanaian farmers. You give them the smallest incentives and they will run a mile with it, and that is a resource we need to exploit to the earth. If we can exploit the willingness of the Ghanaian farmer, our country will be great,” he noted.
Dr. Akoto, who is also a former Member of Parliament (MP) for Kwadaso in the Ashanti Region, said the success story of the Planting for Food and Jobs is attributed to the prioritisation of public resources to the agricultural sector by the NPP government led by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.