To this end, the company has started a consultative meeting with rice farmers and stakeholders at Tono in the Upper East Region to introduce them to Harnessing Agricultural Productivity and Prosperity Youth (HAPPY) programme in order to encourage more youth and women into agriculture.

A statement issued by the company in Accra said Newage Agric Solutions Limited was doing this through HAPPY, a co-created consortium-managed project.

According to the statement, New Age Agric Solutions Limited is set to achieve this target through the provision of 18,000ha of irrigated and rain-fed land for use by youth, especially women over the next four years.

“These youth would continue to have access to the lands for farming and be integrated into the network of farmers connected to Newage Agric Solutions Limited,” the statement said.

It said the primary goal of the programme was to catalyse transformative investments in the rice, soybean, tomato, and poultry value chains, to boost production volumes, curb imports, and strategically create employment opportunities for the youth

“Newage Agric Solutions Limited would also support 120 youths to establish 120 hectares of rice seed farms to supply rice seeds to farmers under the programme, and reach other farmers outside the HAPPY programme.”

The statement said the company’s role in the project would result in increased production in smallholder young farmers and lead to the production and mobilisation of at least 141,790 metric tons of paddy valued at over $44.3 million and 55,000 metric tons of soybean valued at over $34.38 million annually.

The entire consortium-led programme, however, intends to achieve a 20 per cent production increase across the four value chains by the end of the implementation phase.

It said “The investment would entail the expansion of cultivated land by 40,000 hectares and enhancements in yields within the existing 15,000 hectares, with an anticipated outcome of an impressive yield of over 189,000 tons of food and 10,000 tons of poultry, resulting in an annual total revenue of $164 million post-2026.”

The HAPPY programme is projected to generate, sustain, and enhance approximately 320,000 dignified jobs.

The initiative is also expected to curtail the national import expenditure, resulting in savings exceeding $164 million over the four years.