Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto
Ghana’s agriculture export earnings are projected to increase to eight times in the next decade, Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has said.
According to him, the government’s interventions through its flagship Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) coupled with the establishment of Tree Crop Development Authority to regulate the production, processing, trading, and marketing of the six selected tree crops (cashew, shea, mango, coconut, rubber and oil palm) in the country.
Taking his turn at the Meet the Press, Dr. Afriyie Akoto said “Ghana has been a mono-agriculture economy for all these years. Before the arrival of cocoa in this country about 130 years ago, we were doing rubber, oil palm and the rest, trading with the Europeans. Cocoa came and took over very quickly and has dominated the agriculture economy of this country for all these years.
“The Akufo-Addo administration is determined that this monopoly should be broken, and he is doing this by putting into the ground seeds that in the next eight to ten years, this country is going to earn as much as we are earning from cocoa today which is about $2.5 billion a year that each of the six selected crops (cashew, shea, mango, coconut, rubber, and oil palm) will earn as much,” he added.
Ghana remains a major exporter of food products in the world. Currently, the country earns $2.5 billion through the export of cocoa alone.
However, the minister said with the establishment of the Tree Crop Development Authority, Ghana’s agriculture earnings could see an increase to $16 billion in the next 10 years.
This projection, the minister explained, is as a result of the potential of the six selected tree crops.
He said, Ghana will soon exponentially increase its agriculture earnings as each of the identified crops can individually fetch the country as much earnings as cocoa does currently.
Dr. Afriyie Akoto also highlighted government efforts at attaining food security as the country’s average yield increases for its staple crops.
Ghana’s maize production increased to 2,019,000 metric tonnes in 2020 despite the shortages in fertiliser supply. Rice production also increased to 919,000 metric tonnes with Soybean also recording an increase to 193,000 metric tonnes.
Explaining the increment, the minister stated that the PFJ initiative is behind the increase in yields, stressing that the initiative has helped “address the immediate needs of food security to make sure we produce enough food to feed our population and to make sure there are no threats to the amount of food that are fed to our population.