Govt provides GHc10.7 million to support youth in agric programme

Accra, Aug 25, GNA - Government has provided GH¢10.7 million to support the youth involved in the farming of crops such as maize, rice, sorghum and soya beans.

The regions to benefit from the programme include Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Brong-Ahafo, Ashanti, Central and Volta regions. The total hectares of land under cultivation are around 14,000. Dr Kwabena Duffuor, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning disclosed this in Parliament on Tuesday when he presented government's supplementary budget to give an overview of the direction of the country's economy.

He said government had also released an amount of GH¢10.0 million to support the 50 percent subsidy on fertilizer for farmers to expand their production.

He said forty-one dams were being rehabilitated in the three northern regions to support dry season farming. In the area of fisheries, he said government was tackling the issue of premix fuel and spoke on the reconstitution of the National Premix Committee and the establishment of Landing Beach Committees to supervise premix fuel sales and management at the landing beaches. He said in line with government's agenda to encourage commercial agriculture in mango production, the Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF) had approved GH¢1.1 million for eight farmer-based organizations and associations in the Northern and Upper West Regions to cultivate 180 acres each of mango plantations, to be intercropped with annual crops like soyabeans, groundnuts and yams.

He said the intercropping with the annual crops was expected to ensure judicious use of land as well as increase in food output and improvement of household income in the short to medium term during the gestation period of the mango.

He said the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), under the Food Security and Emergency Preparedness Programme, was embarking on an extensive production of rice and maize in some strategic locations in the country.

He said an amount of GH¢3.6 million had been provisioned to support the procurement of appropriate machinery and equipment for the planting and harvesting to enable the MoFA to implement the programme successfully.

He announced that COCOBOD had paid outstanding bonuses of GH¢21.2 million relating to the 2008/2009 cocoa season to farmers.

He said COCOBOD had also arranged for a US$1.2 billion syndicated loan facility scheduled to be signed in September 2009 with 25 banks, for cocoa purchases during the 2009/2010 cocoa season. He said the facility was the largest syndicated loan ever contracted to support the cocoa industry in Ghana, since the NDC Government introduced syndicated loans for cocoa purchases in 1993. On the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), the Minister said preparatory work on the establishment of the project was on course and added that government had inaugurated the SADA Implementation Committee to chart a way forward.