MoFA to lure youth into agriculture

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture is to focus on attracting the youth and women in agriculture as one of its priority areas.

To do this, the ministry is finding ways to make agriculture attractive to the youth while ensuring gender-sensitivity in its interventions and policies.

The Sector Minister, Mohammed-Muniru Limuna, who announced this at a forum in Kumasi, said for the youth to be attracted to agriculture, his ministry was ensuring the availability of equipment such as tractors and their accessories.

Mr Mohammed-Muniru Limuna noted that the youth will get into agriculture only when they see the profits due to higher productivity and quality commodities in addition to reliable markets.

They would also get into agriculture when access to land is not a bottleneck, as well as start-up capital.

These, Mr Mohammed-Muniru Limuna said, were the key issues that the ministry was addressing through its projects and other government agencies.

He disclosed that a number of agriculture value chain infrastructure projects such as feeder roads, irrigation schemes and warehouses have been constructed by his ministry while there have been yield improvements of major crops, as well as value addition.

Food availability in the regions o the country and even some rice farmers still have two years’ stock of paddy rice.

Mr Mohammed-Muniru Limuna emphasised that the state of food and agriculture in the country is not as gloomy as some people may want Ghanaians to believe.