President Akufo-Addo in a photograph with members of the Association of award winners of the Farmers and Fishermen in Accra.
President Akufo-Addo has begun a fresh campaign to encourage Ghanaian farmers to venture into large-scale commercial farming.
After successfully implementing one of government’s flagship programmes, ‘Planting for Food and Jobs,’ the president believes the time has come for the country’s farmers to increase their yields.
He disclosed this when members of the National Association of Award Winners of Farmers and Fishermen called on him at the Jubilee House in Accra on Monday.
President of the Association, Davis Naa Korbor, in his presentation, stressed the need for government to support the country’s farmers to venture into large-scale commercial farming after helping small-scale farmers through the successful ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ programme.
President Akufo-Addo, who embraced the whole idea, pledged his government’s commitment to helping farmers in that regard.
“Commercial farming is a little bit more complex in terms of its financing, and the scope of it and the nature of the assistance,” he said.
“We need to give to commercial farmers fiscal incentives, tax arrangements. We have to do that side-by-side with the growth of our smallholder farmers.”
“It’s inescapable; we cannot avoid it, and we now need to turn our attention to the measures that we need to do to be able to promote commercial farming on a big scale in Ghana.”
For him, “There are other places that it has happened and it can happen here in Ghana too.”
“The initial impulse of government was to find a formula for dealing with you like those down the bottom; the ones most in need so that we can target them, but I think that now we are in the position to broaden our scope and go down the road of diversification that you have pointed out.”
He was of the conviction that this would be made possible through government’s support to farmers and other stakeholders in the sector.
“Your support means that you are also in a position to influence what we are doing; if there are things that are going on that you think can be better, let us hear your voice.”
“The minister (Dr Owusu-Afriyie Akoto), who is in charge, is a person that is very open-minded and passionate. He said he was born on a farm, a cocoa farm and his whole life has been about agriculture. He studied at the university, his Phd is in agriculture economics and that’s his whole life. So he is really passionate about embracing and finding a way to work with you to be able to upscale Ghanaian agriculture.
“We need to be able to work together as a group; government from its side, your side as practitioners and those from the field and find this synergy that would allow us to uplift Ghanaian agriculture.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent