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In order to facilitate Government’s Planting for Foods and Jobs programme, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has so far registered 1,303 aggregators the Deputy Minister, George Boahen Oduro has told Parliament.

The aggregators will be expected to help in marketing crop farmers produce of farmers to potential buyers across the country.

Mr Oduro disclosed this when he appeared before Parliament on Tuesday to answer a question on market linkages between crop farmers and produce off-takers under the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative.

The Deputy Minister indicated that the sustainability of the initiative is very much dependent on providing ready market for farmers under the program.

In a quest to motivate more farmers to sign up to this initiative, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, he said through the National Food Buffer Stock Company has put measures in place to purchase harvested farm produce under the PFJ initiative.

“The Ministry has so far registered 1,303 aggregators and given them licenses through the National Food Buffer Stock Company to purchase the produce from the local farmers under the Planting for Food and Jobs for the 2017/18 cropping season” he said.

The Deputy Minister also disclosed that 131 facilities have been identified for expansion or general rehabilitation while 180 have been identified for new construction making a total of 311 facilities earmarked for intervention under the One Village, One Dam initiative.

The Planting for Food and Jobs initiative was launched in Goaso in the BrongAhafo region in April 2017, has six thematic pillars : improved seed production and promotion, increased fertilizer usage and promotion for increased productivity, promoting and strengthening market linkage, improved extension services ,E-fertiliser and monitoring and national agriculture census; one village, one dam.

Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development are the lead institutions in the implementation of this program in collaboration with the Ministry of Special Projects.

According to the Deputy Minister, further actions will include the following among others: formation of a technical team to undertake detailed studies and design of the systems, implementation of detailed studies and designs and submission of draft design reports, review and preparation of final design reports, preparation of tender documents and bill of quantities, community sensitization and training on use of facilities, works procurement.