Support Feed Ghana Programme to succeed … Agric Minister urges peasant farmers
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, has urged members of the Peasant Farmers Association (PFAG) and other stakeholders in the Agriculture value chain to join hands with the Ministry to move the Feed Ghana Programme (FGP) forward.
He said the Feed Ghana Programme remained one of the flagship programmes of the government to boost agriculture and improve food security in the country.
The Minister made the appeal on Wednesday during a day’s sensitisation workshop for members of PFAG on the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) framework and the FGP.
Topics discussed included presentations on the new ten-year CAADP declaration framework, Ghana’s progress on CAADP, modalities and monitoring tools for the FGP.
The framework provide a blueprint for agricultural interventions in Ghana, and what is expected from the beneficiaries and their respective roles in ensuring the success of these interventions.
Mr Opoku urged farmers in the various communities to form cooperatives in order to have strong voice and be recognised to enjoy from the government agriculture interventions.
Mr Opoku said to ensure the success of the FGP plans were far advanced to rehabilitate the non-functioning irrigation dams, establishing a modern soil, seed and fertiliser testing equipment and automated weather monitoring devices across the country to assist the farmers on what to produce and when to produce.
He said plans were afoot to establish Agriculture Industrial Parks, install 250 solar powered boreholes to support vegetable farming as well as create ready market for the farmers as part of the 24- Hour Economy Agenda.
He urged the citizenry to establish backyard gardens especially in vegetables to save income.
The President of PFAG, Wepia Addo Wall Adugwula, said the CAADP would play pivotal role in shaping the fortunes of PFAG members, who constituted over 70 per cent of Ghana’s farming population.
“It is for this reason that the CAADP focuses on the transformation and modernisation of agriculture to lift smallholder farmers out of poverty,” he said.
He noted that the introduction and launch of the FGP under the Agriculture for Economic Transformation agenda, presented opportunity to address the challenges facing peasant farmers, indicating that peasant farmer had already begun to realise the benefits of the programme.
The President applauded the Minister for donating 15,000 bags of fertiliser to PFAG.
Mr Adugwula expressed concern about the inadequate agricultural infrastructure, high input costs, and poor marketing systems, and climate change which continue to negatively affect smallholder farmers’ incomes and livelihoods.
He pleaded with the Minister to expedite actions to mitigate the post-harvest crisis facing farmers.
BY LAWRENCE VOMAFA-AKPALU
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