A Former Minister of Food and Agriculture, and Presidential aspirant of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, says he will transform Ghana's agriculture to become the strongest potential to halt poverty in the country when elected as President of the Republic in December 2024.
He said his policies and programmes would guarantee food and nutrition security, as well as generate the necessary resources for the development of the other sectors of our economy including industry, health, education and infrastructure in the medium to long term.
"Under my tenure as president, the Economic Management Team headed by the Vice President, shall be a newly created agricultural management team (AMT) chaired by the President himself to drive agricultural development. The AMT shall comprise seven agric-related ministries, namely: Food & Agriculture, Finance, Trade & Industry, Lands & Natural Resources, Transport, Local Government & Rural Development, and Environment, Science, Technology & Innovation," he said.
Dr Akoto said this last Friday at a public lecture to climax the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Mensah Sarbah Hall at the University of Ghana.
He added that his tenure shall appropriately fund the research endeavours of the diverse national agricultural research institutions, including the universities, in areas such as agronomy, extension, plant breeding, integrated soil fertility management, integrated pest and disease management, post-harvest management and climate-smart.
Dr Akoto said these initiatives were needed following the global tensions over the Russia-Ukraine War, and the recent threat to grains supply from Ukraine to Africa which threatens Ghana and the continent's food security outlook.
He said there was the need to implement medium term policies and programmes within our economy to enhance food security since the performance of the other natural resource activities like mining, oil and gas had been below expectations.
He explained that the other potential contributions of our natural resources to the development of the economy had been sharply curtailed by three key issues.
Dr Akoto mentioned unfavourable long-term contracts which were almost impossible to alter; retention abroad of most of the export proceeds and; majority ownership held by foreign interests.
"I must reiterate here that "Agriculture is the means to our end". The Tree Crop Development Authority, The Grains Development Authority and the other commodity institutions can together substantially expand our export earning capacity to fund industrial development and finance social sectors including health, education, housing and roads.
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Brazil, China, Malaysia and Thailand are recent examples of agricultural success stories in driving economic transformation," Dr Akoto said.
He said whilst the threats of the looming global crises unfolded, it became increasingly clear that Ghana's political independence, economic transformation and the survival of its youthful population would depend on robust economy that had agriculture as unconditional priority.
Highlighting on some of his achievement at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, he said, he made significant investment in farm inputs to increase agricultural productivity that raises incomes of farmers, and achieves national food security.
"In the period 2017 to 2021, the government invested GH¢2.6 billion in subsidies to procure and distribute 1.4 million MT of fertiliser and 93,192 MT of improved seeds to over 1.7 million farmers.
This investment generated farm output worth GH¢47.5 billion at the farm gate. This presents a huge economic rate of return on public expenditure under the Planting for Food and Jobs Programme," Dr Akoto said.
