BUDGET: Farmers to receive Credit

Accra, Nov. 16, GNA - About 5,000 livestock farmers are to be trained in credit management, loan mobilization and recovery techniques to assist the revival of the ailing livestock sub-sector, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning said on Thursday.

Presenting the 2007 Budget and government's economic policy in Parliament, Mr Baah-Wiredu said 4,000 livestock farmers/farmer groups, meat and milk processors and community livestock workers would be linked to the Agricultural Development Bank to enable them to access credit. Under the Food Crop Development Project (FCDP), 1,500 eligible farmers will be given credit support while an amount of A25.3 billion (US$584,000) is to be disbursed to farmer groups for production, storage, processing and Marketing.

In addition, the Inland Valley Rice Development Project will provide A223.92 billion (US$2.6 million) as credit to beneficiaries in the 8 participating Districts. A total of 1000 farmers, 50 traders and 10 groups will be vetted for the credit.

Mr Baah-Wiredu said the Cashew Development Project will also disburse about A250.6 billion (US$5.5 million) to project beneficiaries for cashew production and processing.

He said about 70 kilometres of farm access roads would be improved under the Inland Valleys Rice Development Project. He said a total of 40 km of feeder roads would be rehabilitated in the Afram Plains to facilitate movement of farm produce to the marketing centres.

Mr Baah-Wiredu said the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), in collaboration with the Ghana Aids Commission (GAC) would continue to organize awareness campaigns on HIV/AIDS nationwide.

A total of 158 HIV/AIDS prevention focal persons will be trained and the HIV/AIDS policy document will be finalized, printed and distributed.

The Minister said to strengthen Extension Research and Farmers Linkage (RELC), the RELC manual will be reviewed and updated with 2,000 copies printed and distributed.

To reduce child labour in agriculture, the Minister said MOFA will organize a consultative workshop with stakeholders, while a total of 80 Farmer-Based Organizations are to be formed and strengthened to enable them to access business development services.

Mr Baah-Wiredu said MoFA would continue to pilot pro-poor interventions in 20 Districts in 2007 to cater for vulnerable and marginalized farmers. Beneficiaries will include crop and livestock farmers.

Lessons learnt will be factored into MOFA's programmes for poverty reduction. In addition, the Gender and Agricultural Development Strategy will be reviewed, updated and a monitoring framework for gender mainstreaming developed.

The Ministry has been allocated 1.2 billion cedis to implement the projects and programmes to carry out its activities in 2007.