Ghanaians Urged To Participate In Agricultural Production

A commercial farmer in the Eastern Region has called on individuals, institutions and religious organisations to participate actively in agricultural production to make Ghana food sufficient. Mr Edmond Osei Kissi, an innovative farmer from Asuboi said the involvement of individuals and institutions in agriculture would not only help to create jobs but would also enhance the livelihoods of people through improved economic development. Mr Kissi was speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra to suggest some solutions to the economic challenges facing Ghana in recent times. He said the churches would be doing themselves, their congregation, as well as the government a lot of good, if they combined the spiritual aspects of building the people to feeding them and earning foreign exchange for the government through exportation of food and cash crops. He said the current economic mishaps that had plagued Ghana, particularly the dollarisation of the cedi, could be overcome if much attention was paid to agricultural development, because it played a significant role in creating jobs and ensuring the stability of the cedi. The farmer noted that Ghana could have produced more rice to feed her people and for export to earn foreign exchange if the amount of money government spent in the importation of rice annually was invested in agriculture. Mr Kissi therefore appealed to the government to support farmers with the appropriate machinery, inputs and finance to expand their acreages and also diversify agricultural production. He expressed regret that the youth were running away from farming due to the high cost of inputs, and lack of incentives to motivate small scale farmers.