By
Rashid Mbugri, GNA,
Tamale, Oct 04, GNA – Dr Gyieli Nurah, the
Minister of State at the Presidency in-Charge of Food and Agriculture, has said
Government was willing to obtain feedbacks from stakeholders and citizens to
help in successful implementation of its flagship programmes.
He said these feedbacks would help give new
ideas to government on how to improve on the efficiency and effectiveness of
its flagship programmes to help achieve its vision of a Ghana beyond Aid.
He said this on Wednesday in Tamale, during
the opening ceremony of the eighth Annual Pre-harvest Agribusiness Exhibition
and Conference event, under the theme: “Agribusiness in the Northern
Region, the Future starts now”.
The event was organized by Agrihouse
Foundation in partnership with the World Food Programme, USAID ADVANCE,
Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Northern Development Authority (NDA) and
other private and international organisations as well as various stakeholders,
farmers and farmer groups in the north.
The three-day event, sought to create a
dynamic platform for commodities buyers and farmers to establish business
relationships and discuss contracts for the harvest of their produce to promote
growth in Ghana’s agricultural sector.
Dr Nurah said for instance, the Planting for
Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme was one of the flagship programmes for
agriculture and agribusiness, aimed at modernizing the agricultural sector to
help transform the nation’s economy.
He said the PFJ programme was complemented by
government’s other flagship programmes in particular the Infrastructure for
Poverty Eradication Program( IPEP ), One District One Factory (1D1F) and
National Entrepreneurship Innovation
Program (NEIP), with each of these programmes having significant agribusiness elements
for development .
Dr Nurah said the implementation of the IPEP
had began with the establishment of the three development authorities with its
heads of managements, to manage resources for development and also obtain
feedbacks from citizens and serve as a paradigm shift in government’s approach
to sustainable development especially at the grassroots levels in the country.
He said the government also believed firmly in
Public-Private partnership to help grow the economy and increase business and
job opportunities for all Ghanaians especially the youth.
Madam Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, Executive
Director of Agrihouse Foundation, said the Pre-harvest event was to present
realistic opportunities for various value chain actors to meet, discuss
business and work together to ensure that enough produce was available for
local consumption and exports by mitigating the risk associated with excessive
importation.
She said participants would be taken through
practical and engaging session to enable them gain deeper insight into best
practices as well as how to take full advantage of numerous opportunities in
the agricultural sector.
Madam Akyea said the Agrihouse Foundation
believed in the capacity of women in agriculture since they contributed to
about 70 per cent of food produced in the country and called on government to
pay serious attention to women in agriculture to help bridge the gap that
existed between them and their male counterparts.
Madam Heather Cameron, the Canadian High Commissioner
to Ghana, said Canada had the vision of supporting the government of Ghana to
improve on its agricultural sector and through their partnership with WFP, more
than 5,000 farmers had been helped to increase their productivity, raise
revenues from the sale of their produce as well as connect with marketers
within the agricultural value chains.
She urged all the financial institutions
present to help continue in providing support to the smallholder farmers and
entrepreneurs to improve on and strengthen their businesses.
Mr Ron Strikker, the Netherlands Ambassador to
Ghana commended female farmers for their efforts in contributing to most of the
agriculture in the country.
He said the north had the potential of being
the bread basket of food in the country, and urged all farmers to continue to
give out their best because the sector had vast arable land, source of water
for irrigation, animal production among others.
Mr Strikker, however, called on stakeholders
and traditional leaders to help stop the falling of trees and bushfires to
preserve the rich fertile soil and the vegetation to improve on crop yield.
Ms Rukia Yacoub, the Country representative of
the World Food Programme (WFP) acknowledged the government of Canada for its partnership
and continued funding, which had allowed WFP in Ghana to embark on a new
chapter of innovative, integrated food security and nutrition programmes and
had helped improve on food production in Ghana.
She said the innovative programmes, which was
centred on Ghanaian owned industrial agro-processes; assisted farmers across
the country with funding to enable them produce specialised fortified
nutritious food of international standards and made available some of the
produce on the Ghanaian markets to prevent malnutrition.
Ms Yacoub said over 10,000 smallholder farmers
in the Upper East, Upper West, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions have been
identified and linked to these agro-processes as the market for their produce
and some of the lead farmers were going to participate in the three days event.
Mr Salifu Saeed, the Northern Regional
Minister challenged all investors to continue to support farmers within the
northern zone with logistics and farm inputs to help facilitate agricultural
production and eradicate poverty in the zone.
He urged the youth to take advantage of the
ongoing initiative and venture into agriculture to help ensure that the
northern sector produces enough food to feed the zone and the country as a
whole.
GNA