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The National Food and Agric Show – FAGRO – Secretariat has vowed to up the ante for the Agric sector in a bid to make it a major employer for the nation’s youth.

Speaking at the official launch of this year’s National Food and Agric Show – FAGRO 2016 – Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, General Manager of the FAGRO Secretariat, stated;  “the FAGRO Secretariat is committed to repositioning Agriculture by making it the game changer in job creation and progressive application of relevant technologies that checkmate losses and churns out matchless dividends. The yields of Agric feed all of us but we pay little attention to the industry and its challenges. That is what we at the FAGRO Secretariat seek to address. We are seeking to position Agric and put it on the front burner of public discourse in order to give it a broader appeal”.

This year’s FAGRO exhibition – the 7th since its inception – is themed; “Preparation, knowledge and Training = Business”. The theme, according to the Secretariat, was carefully selected to reflect the changing face of Agriculture from the survival means of the scarcely-educated peasant farmer, to the swelling bank account of the sophisticated, technology-savvy investor who capitalises on his knowledge to surmount teething problems to safeguard his investment”, Alberta added for good measure.

The 7th FAGRO exhibition will hold at the Ghana International Trade Fair Site from September 28 to 30, with not less than 1000 participants and exhibitors expected to converge from all parts of the country to mount stands and exhibit their agric-related goods and services.

“We will also have an Agribusiness Boot Camp on the margins of the event which will empower players in the sector with cutting-edge Business Plan writing skills to enable them attract credit facilities for expansion. This dovetails into our broad vision of using Agriculture to create jobs. Once such ventures expand with credit facilities, jobs will be created. There will also be a crop demonstration by leading seed company, Tikola as part of FAGRO 2016, with a sponsored field trip by Dezengoff to a Green housing and fruit farm at winneba climaxing activities lined up for this year’s event”, she concluded.

In his address, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Ahmed Alhassan Yakubu, commended the FAGRO Secretariat for its unflinching commitment to the cause of Agric, and for taking active part in making the lives of players in the sector better. “The FAGRO Secretariat has made and continues to make impact in the lives of stakeholders even outside the main exhibition”, he said.

For instance, he added,  “through its value chain approach at the annual exhibitions, FAGRO has been able to assist smallholder farmers to add value to their products or produce as well as link them to market inputs, equipment, and investment deals. FAGRO built on the existing capacity of smallholder farmers to increase their efficiency in their farm businesses. A Case-in-point was when through the Secretariat’s instrumentality, FBX Technologies from Spain intervened in Ghanaian Onion farmers’ businesses linking some to markets in Europe as well as providing them with capital”

He noted that despite protracted challenges on the global food and economic fronts which had resulted in high food prices around the world, Ghana had been spared the scourge of food insecurity and had come out unscathed as our industrious farmers continue to turn out impressive yields to feed the growing population.

Present at the launch was His Excellency Henry Hanson Hall Ghana's former Ambassador to Israel, representatives of the Brazilian and Israeli embassies, as well as FAGRO’s partners and a number of stakeholders in the Agric sector.