Government will develop Agriculture - Nana Addo

President Akufo-Addo has noted that if Ghana is to make any meaningful change in the lives of the people, her efforts must be directed at agriculture, as the majority of people can only feel a change in their lives when agriculture is developed.

With Ghana’s agriculture predominantly hinged on the production of cocoa, President Akufo-Addo noted that the country has not made much progress in the cultivation of staples, like rice, maize and soya, urging, therefore, for a fundamental change in attitudes towards agriculture.

He made the statement when he launched the ‘Planting For Food and Jobs’ at Goaso in the Brong Ahafo Region.

“Agriculture is not and cannot be a single-crop industry. Farming is a business and it is a profession that must be promoted and studied like all other professions.

Ghana has the unique potential to feed its growing population, meet the raw material requirements of our processing industries, achieve food security, and compete successfully as a leading supplier to countries around us and beyond,” he said.

The vision of his government, he stressed, will be to modernize agriculture, improve production efficiency, achieve food security, and profitability for farmers, all aimed at significantly increasing agricultural productivity.

Additionally, a value-addition strategy, aimed at rapidly ramping up agro-processing and developing new and stable markets for products will be pursued.

“Our policies and interventions will encompass the full agricultural value chain and create additional businesses and job opportunities in the areas of storage, transport, processing, packaging and marketing of agricultural produce, all of which will ensure that our farmers and fisher folk earn higher incomes,” he added.