He said maize farmers were the highest beneficiaries, registering about 9,376 people since it was launched by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in 2017.

 In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Dr Quist said 1,994 tomatoes, 1,762 rice, 784 pepper, and 148 onion farmers had also registered.

The Brong-Ahafo Regional Chapter of the Ghana Society of the Physically Challenged in collaboration with MIHOSO International, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), with support from the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC Fund) organised a sensitisation workshop on the programme for persons with disabilities (PWD) at Nkoranza.

It aimed at sensitising the participants, mainly persons with disabilities to identify possible areas that could be of benefit to them.

Dr Quist explained that the PfFJs programme was on course, adding that in 2017, more than 28,278 bags of maize seeds were supplied to maize farmers, 18,044 bags to rice farmers, 50 bags of soya beans, 4,051 sachets of tomatoes, 2,543 sachets of onion and 1,988 sachets of pepper.

On fertilizer input, the government supplied the Region with 212,188 NPK fertilisers, 42,729 Urea fertiliser and 84,194 SoA fertilisers.

The Region was able to distribute NPK-79,357, Urea -20,399, and SoA-27,441 fertilisers to the farmers at subsidised prices.

Dr Quist said his outfit also distributed 20,528 fertilizers to the maize farmers out of the 23,376 bags received from the government 5,878 to rice farmers out of the 18,044 bags.

   He said 60,514 had been targeted to benefit from the programme in 2018, and advised especially the teeming unemployed youth to develop the interest and engage in commercial farming activities to become beneficiaries of the programme.

   Dr Quist emphasised that the PfFJs programme would make agricultural production competitive and underlined the need for the government to increase investment in the sector and develop relevant linkages to increase on national food production average and also create sustainable jobs.

   Mr. Pontius Ninwiri, the Project Officer of MIHOSO International, said research conducted by his NGO showed that education on the PfFJs was down and therefore called on the government to intensify public education on the programme.

   He expressed concern about poor monitoring of the programme, saying a policy guideline was urgently required to make its implementation sustainable.