He noted that the agricultural sector was a key area of the economy that employed almost half of the country’s working population, hence the need for the government to have a critical look at it.

Mr Ashigbey said this at the Graphic Business / Stanbic Bank Breakfast Meeting last Tuesday in Accra.

“The agriculture sector employs majority of Ghanaians as it constitutes the largest occupational group population of about 2.9 million of the current employed persons.
In the rural communities, farming is the main occupation of the people, constituting about 2.5 million of employment,” he stated.

Breakfast meeting

Touching on the event, Mr Ashigbey said, it was aimed at impacting policy formulation in the country and was an opportunity for stakeholders to deliberate on issues of interest to the general public.

On the theme: ‘Securing the Economy with Agriculture,’ the event brought together stakeholders within the agricultural sector to deliberate and share ideas on how best the country can transform the economy through agriculture.

The breakfast meeting, which is an initiative of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) and the bank, is a series of dialogues that feature selected topics and is aimed at influencing government policies in favour of businesses.

The event assembled speakers such as the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, and a former Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Dr Alhassan Yakubu.

Other speakers were the General Secretary of the Ghana Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU), Mr Edward Kareweh, Dr Abu Sakara, an agriculture expert and the former MD of GCGL, Mr Kenneth Ashigbey.

The MD said the theme for this edition, which was on agriculture, was about how to develop the sector for the socio-economicdevelopment of the country.

Contribution of agric sector

Dr Akoto said the contribution of the sector to the development of the country’s economy was enormous.

He noted that in spite of the enormous benefits derived from the agricultural sector, it was still facing several challenges which needed to be addressed immediately.

“Only 11 per cent of maize farmers use improved seeds, which means that about 81 per cent of maize farmers still use the old traditional seeds that do not bring boom harvest; and this is a worry to the country since maize is one of the most important crops in Ghana.

“Pollinated seeds, for example, should be adopted since they increase yield more than three times of what the farmers are producing,” he added.

He observed that the ministry had on its books 4,400 extension officers, but there were actually 2,200 of which about 80 per cent would soon retire from active service.

Touching on the government’s flagship agriculture programme, Dr Akoto said the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ was to help transform the economy through agriculture.

He added that this programme was to transform the agriculture sector by introducing measures such as the right choice of crops, including maize, rice, soya bean and vegetables for this year.

Out of five million farmers and fishermen, the focus are only on 200,000 of them since there is limited seeds.

The minister, however, said that the ministry was targeting 500,000 people.