Funding for Youth In Agriculture Programme to increase by 500%

Agave (V/R), Oct. 15, GNA - Government is to increase budgetary allocation for the Youth In Agriculture programme by 500 per cent, raising the amount from GHc10 million in 2009 to GHc 60 million next year.

The move is to encourage medium and large scale food production among the youth, especially in areas of comparative advantage to triple food production within the next three years.

It is also meant to cut down on the country's foreign exchange rate and make the cedi much stronger.

Vice President John Dramani Mahama announced this on Thursday, when he inspected rice projects at Agave and Aveyime-Battor in the South Tongu and Central Tongu districts of the Volta Region.

At Agave, Mr Frademir Saccol, Managing Director of the Brazil Agro Business Group, cultivators of the Agave Rice Farm, took the Vice President round the company's 200-hectare facility.

He said there were efforts to increase production by 5,000 hectares in three years.

The Agave project began four months ago and the first produce will hit the Ghanaian market in January 2010.

At Aveyime-Battor, Mr Everett Anderson, Managing Director of Prairie Volta Limited, cultivators of the Aveyime Rice Project took Mr Mahama round the facility, announcing that the company had already harvested 650 hectares out of the 800- hectare project and had so far replanted 400 hectares.

Mr Mahama said the country currently imported food to the tune of one billion dollars annually, a trend that the government was determined to reverse.

To this end "government is mapping out a strategy to encourage the production of soyabean, maize and other cereals that form the core of staples enjoyed by the citizenry", the Vice President said.

He said government was also designing an initiative in poultry production, which it planned to role out soon, to ensure a reduction in the amount of poultry products the country imported.

"Our policy is to encourage import substitution by increasing the production of crops and livestock in areas of comparative advantage, to the country to cut down on foreign exchange rate," he said.

He said government was implementing a farm mechanisation concept by providing tractors at affordable rates, to groups and individuals to provide ploughing services to rural farmers at low costs to enhance their production.

Mr Mahama said government was also carrying through with its interventions to subsidize farm implements, equipment, fertilizers, seedlings among other things to farmers.

The Vice President said government's interventions in the agricultural sector coupled with the level of food production going on nationwide indicated that the country was on course to reducing her food imports drastically within the next three years.

He observed that the youth had not embraced agriculture as a means to earning livelihood and urged them to take to farming because it could make them have meaningful living.

Mr Saccol pleaded with government to help secure loans from the Agricultural Development Bank to assist his company to carry out its expansion drive.

GNA