Implement Policies To Make Ghana Self-Sufficient In Poultry - Dr Bawumia Charges Agric Ministry
The Vice President of the Republic, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has
challenged the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to implement targeted,
deliberate policies to make Ghana self-sufficient in chicken production
and save the nation from the huge poultry import bill.
This follows an announcement by the Minister for Food and
Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, that there was no maize imports
this year after the implementation of policies such as the Planting for
Food and Jobs which resulted in a bumper harvest.
The Vice President has therefore challenged the Ministry to replicate
this success in the poultry sub sector to ensure a drastic reduction,
if not an outright cessation, of poultry imports in the next few years.
Vice President Bawumia issued the challenge when he launched the 34th National Farmers Day on Friday 3rd August, 2018 in Accra.
This year’s weeklong celebration, which would take place at Tamale in
the Northern Region, is under the theme “Agriculture: Moving Ghana
Beyond Aid.”
While commending the Agriculture Minister, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto,
and his team for the successes chalked under the Planting for Food and
Jobs programme, including, according to the Minister, the ending of
maize imports because local production had met national demand, Vice
President Dr Bawumia urged the Ministry to replicate their success in
the poultry sector.
“I want to challenge the Ministry for Food and Agriculture, and Dr
Owusu Afriyie Akoto, that yes, you have announced that we’ve stopped
importing maize this year, so very soon, in the next couple of years, I
want you to announce that we’ve also stopped importing chicken. That is
the challenge that I want to give you in the next couple of years.
“We have to pursue a very deliberate policy intervention to make sure that we can grow and eat our own chicken.”
Vice President Bawumia underscored the key role agriculture would
play in achieving President Nana Akufo-Addo’s vision of a Ghana Beyond
Aid, emphasising that it was time to “engineer a sustainable
agricultural development path that would assure both national and
household food security, improved rural livelihoods and make Ghana
agriculture competitive in the world market.”
In this light, government would continue and expand the
implementation of ongoing agricultural programmes such as the Planting
for Food and Jobs, which would see the number of direct beneficiaries
rise from 200,000 in 2017 to 500,000 in 2018, Dr Bawumia disclosed.
“Government’s approach and strategy for the development of Ghana’s
agriculture, is holistic and transcends the PFJ initiative. Equally
important interventions are being rolled out in the irrigation
sub-sector in pursuit of the One Village One Dam programme. Under this
One Village One dam programme, which is being implemented in the three
northern regions, we expect about 570 dams to be constructed by next
year.
“The increase in agricultural productivity means we have to focus on
processing and that is why we have the One District One Factory flagship
programme and this is also on course.
“We also know that the road sector is a major area in terms of the
challenges that the agricultural sector generally faces. In the 2017
budget we outlined what we call the Akufo- Addo plan for Economic
Transformation which was largely focused on improving agricultural
productivity. At the heart of this programme was to make sure that
critical roads across the whole country were fixed so that agricultural
produce could move to market. We have so many parts of the country where
poor roads are a major inhibiting factor to agriculture.
“Thankfully, following the initiation of this programme we have seen,
recently announced, that we are going to invest close to a billion
dollars in road infrastructure starting this year, under the Sinohydro
barter facility that we have arranged,” Vice President Bawumia
indicated.
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