AGRICULTURE was the most important source of growth in the Ghanaian economy between 2000 and 2005 with an average of about 5.1% while services and industry averaged about 5.0% and 4.5% respectively.

However, agriculture remained a dominant sector by 2005, contributing about 42% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while services and industry contributed about 31% and 27% respectively.

Also, from a period of 1995 to 2005, the contribution of agriculture to the country's GDP declined marginally from about 42.7% to about 41.9%, representing a decrease of about 0.8 percent while the services sector contribution to GDP however increased by about 0.6% and that of the industry output in GDP also increased to about 0.2 of a percentage point.

This, in addition to problems such as the sector being predominantly rain-fed, with undeveloped irrigation systems, an average use of fertilizer of about 34,000 mt/annum in the last decade, as well as agriculture being mostly smallholder activity has prompted the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) to propose agriculture modernization as part of the processes to propel development towards attaining national goals such as the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy I&II and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

The NDPC, headed by honourable J.H Mensah in their technical report on a ten-year development plan for the nation, which is being discussed at the stakeholder level noted that the average use of fertilizer in the agriculture sector was one of the lowest in Africa and probably the world.

The report indicated that lack of effective handling of post-harvest activities such that there were annual loses for food crops, estimated at 30%, land degradation with serious consequences for sustainable growth and productivity and also lack of feedstuff for livestock in the dry season all constituted problems for traditional agriculture.

"Several technologies (improved seeds, GMO and IPM) that have been developed and disseminated to increase productivity have had little or no adoption rates due to cost and cultural preferences", it added.

To reverse the trend, NDPC stated, "the key solution to the problems of traditional agriculture in Ghana is modernizing agriculture" and added that this has been the focus of government's last two economic development strategies, which are (GPRS I&II, MCC).

It said it was important for this to be tackled on several fronts simultaneously to involve all segments of stakeholders in the transformation process and be based on experiences of other developing countries, but consistent with Ghana's development objectives and compatible with its social context.

Further, the report mentioned that strategies for modernizing agriculture should be based on principles and development goals and objectives while key interventions should include out-grower and irrigation development schemes, and farmer based organization/ community training programs.

Others include locally owned storage facilities, agro-processing plants through arrangements and infrastructure development for energy and transport including district assemblies.