<\/p>\n
Dr Afriyie Akoto and Mr Tony Blair<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n MINISTER OF Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has appealed to investors to take advantage of the numerous opportunities that abound in Ghana\u2019s agriculture sector.<\/p>\n According to him, the sector, over the past five years, has been positively impacted by the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative introduced by Government.<\/p>\n Addressing potential investors at a breakfast meeting organised by the Tony Blair Institute of Ghana (TBIG) recently, the minister said the massive investment in the sector has yielded good results, making Ghana the food basket of the West African sub-region.<\/p>\n \u201cTake soya bean, for example. Before 2017, we were producing less than 100,000 tonnes, but today, we are producing more than a quarter of a million tonnes. We have quadrupled our rice production, and we are a net exporter of maize to neighboring countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The minister said Ghana\u2019s success story in the sector has won admiration from some governments in the sub-region, some of which include Burkina Faso, Togo, Malawi, as well as Trinidad and Tobago, who visited the country at different times to learn about the programme for emulation in their respective countries.<\/p>\n Opportunities<\/strong><\/p>\n The minister pointed out that even though the production capacities of some food crops such as maize, rice, and soya bean have witnessed noteworthy increases since the rollout of the various interventions under the PFJ programme, Ghana still produced below capacity, for which reason, more investment was needed.<\/p>\n \u201cGhana\u2019s agricultural sector now provides new areas of opportunities along the value chain for both foreign and domestic investors,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Furthermore, he said, that there were huge prospects in the poultry industry, as well as in marketing, packaging, branding, and advertising for investors to explore.<\/p>\n Commending the former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for providing a platform to interact with potential investors and captains of industry from across the country, he said his ministry has had good working relationship with the Tony Blair Institute.<\/p>\n International Standing<\/strong><\/p>\n On his part, Mr. Blair extolled Ghana\u2019s high international reputation, which made her notable among her peers, adding \u201cit was always an honor to visit this country and to interact with its people\u201d.<\/p>\n Mr Blair encouraged the government to continue pursuing economic transformation through the employment of technology and value addition.<\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dr Afriyie Akoto and Mr Tony Blair MINISTER OF Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has appealed to investors to take advantage of the numerous opportunities that abound in Ghana\u2019s agriculture sector. According to him, the sector, over the past five years, has been positively impacted by the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":985533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[3025,664,1223,3915],"class_list":["post-985532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-agriculture","tag-investors","tag-minister","tag-woos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}