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Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister for Food and Agriculture, has cut the sod for the construction of a $50million food processing plant in the Jasikan District of the Volta Region under the One District One Factory (1D1F) initiative.

The construction and machinery installation of the plant sited on a 50-acre plot would be executed with German engineering and expected to provide about 1,500 to 3,000 direct and indirect jobs.

The plant will have an output capacity of 400 tonnes daily and would benefit about 20,000 people when in full production.

The minister said the start of work on the project showed government's commitment to propelling the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme into the nation's agricultural transformation tool.

He said aside heavy subsidies on some farm inputs, government was providing high yield varieties to outstrip demand and increase the income of farmers by ten folds.

Akoto said government had a $220 million facility currently on the negotiation table to be invested into farm machinery, and promised to help provide access roads and other needed facilities to grow the sector.