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The government has unveiled a new agriculture initiative dubbed "Feed Ghana Programme" to facilitate a transformation of the country's agricultural sector.
The initiative seeks to boost agricultural production to feed the population, provide raw materials to feed agro-processing factories and create jobs for the teeming youth.
It involves sub-projects on vegetables, grains, poultry, oil palm, tubers and other import substitutes to reduce the country’s reliance on imports and transition into an export-heavy economy.
Launched by President John Dramani Mahama in Techiman in the Bono East Region last Saturday, the agriculture intervention is expected to play a crucial role in transforming the country's agricultural landscape, providing support to farmers to increase production and boost the country’s food systems.
President Mahama explained that the initiative was crucial because it would reduce the country's over-reliance on food imports, which currently exceeded $2 billion annually, a situation that posed significant risks to economic stability and exposed the country to external market fluctuations and currency instability.
He said challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, limited access to financing, and inefficient farming techniques continued to hinder the growth of Ghana’s agricultural sector, and that the initiative would work towards increasing local raw material production for animal feed manufacturing, ensuring a stable supply of agricultural products for industrial use.
He said the programme would ensure stronger linkages between smallholder farmers and commercial farmers to facilitate a win-win relationship for input access, technical support and a guaranteed market, among others.
President Mahama said the government would take a holistic approach to transform agriculture through modernisation, with special emphasis on value chain approaches to improve service delivery.
He said the country needed to urgently work towards translating Ghana's agricultural potential into real sustainable progress to feed Ghanaians, create jobs and increase income.
"The time has come for bold and decisive actions; we must no longer treat agriculture as an afterthought. Agriculture must be placed at the centre of our national economic transformation.
“In this spirit, my government is rolling out the Feed Ghana Programme under the broader theme of Agriculture for Economic Transformation Agenda (AETA). This is a comprehensive vision to modernise and expand agriculture to create jobs, reduce food inflation, and strengthen food security," he said.
President Mahama said the initiative was anchored on deliberate actions to boost food production, promote modern farm practices, strengthen infrastructure, and develop agro-industrial zones across the country.
The main objective of the project is to enhance food security, alleviate poverty among farmers, attract young people and women to venture into agriculture, and stabilise food prices across the country.
Under the programme, the government is expected to establish farmers’ service centres, create farm banks, promote crop cultivation, support urban farming, revitalise the poultry industry, and increase local raw material production to feed agro-processing factories.
The government’s flagship programme will focus on commodities such as maize, rice, soya bean, tomato, onions and chilli pepper, as well as cassava, plantain and yam.
Other industrial crops of key priority under the initiative are cocoa, mango, rubber, coconut, shea, coffee, cashew, oil palm, ginger and cotton.
The initiative also focuses on putting a premium on livestock industries such as poultry, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs.
President Mahama said the implementation of the programme would maximise food production, nutrition and the use of smart agricultural systems to improve self-reliance.
He explained that the establishment of farmer service centres across the country would provide mechanisation services, quality inputs, finance market access and training of farmers, among other essential services.
The President said the creation of farm banks in designated zones would support young agriculture entrepreneurs and enhance national food production.
Under the broad initiative, he said the government would also implement the Grains and Legumes Project, explaining that the government would scale up the production of maize, rice, soya bean and sorghum for consumption, agro-processing and export.
The President lamented that the country imported almost $400 million worth of chicken annually, and mentioned another key component of the initiative as the Poultry Industry Revitalisation Programme to address the situation.
"This we all must be ashamed of,” he said.
President Mahama said the programme would be implemented in collaboration with the Poultry Farmers’ Association to increase production.
Under the programme, he said, the government would support hatcheries, feed mills, veterinary services and poultry processing centres to boost sustainable poultry production.
The President said this year, the government would register 50 anchor farmers to be supported to produce four million birds, equivalent to 10,000 metric tonnes of chicken.
Additionally, he said, the supplementary programme would involve the registration of 55,000 households across the country.
President Mahama said each of the households would produce 500 birds annually, expressing the hope that more than one million birds would be produced yearly to improve food nutrition and the incomes of women.
"We believe that this would rear over one million birds and thereby improve the incomes of women and the nutrition of their children," he said.
He said the government had also placed priority on vegetable production, where households and institutions would be encouraged to grow vegetables and other foodstuffs to enhance nutrition and increase self-reliance. He thus encouraged students and the youth to view agriculture as a career.
President Mahama said the launch would also introduce a National Palm Oil Industry policy to provide strategic incentives across the value chain from cultivation to export.
He said the government would develop agro-processing zones with irrigation, roads, power and warehouses to attract private investment to boost production and processing of the agricultural produce.
"The policy aims to address Ghana’s consumption deficit, promote commercial plantations, and position the country competitively in the global palm oil market," he said.
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, called on Ghanaians to embrace the initiative to improve the country's agricultural sector and the economy.
He explained that the country spent a huge sum of money to import tomatoes from Burkina Faso and onions from Niger, as well as pepper, maize and rice from other countries, which could be produced in excess in the country.
He said the country was blessed with fertile lands and rivers to support the production of food items to feed the country, including its agro-processing factories.
The Bono East Regional Minister, Francis Owusu Antwi, said the region was the best choice for the launch of the intervention because it was one of the food baskets of the country.
He said the region offered the greatest opportunity for the future of the country's agriculture.
