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President Akufo-Addo in his state of the nation address has posited that the current state of the country’s agriculture which is supposed to be the bedrock of the economy is nothing good to write home about.

Addressing Parliament on Tuesday February 21, 2017, President Akufo-Addo indicated that the starting point in turning around the fortunes of the country is rested on agriculture but yet the sector is not in a good shape.

He recounted that farmers are left on their own without government support, signifying the high cost of food prices; thus almost everything the country need are being imported from neighbouring African countries even though agriculture provides the best opportunity to use modern method to change the lives of many within the shortest possible time.

“The state of agriculture in our country right now is not good. Farmers are left on their own and we are not therefore surprised that food prices are high and we are almost importing everything we need and yet agriculture provides the best opportunity to use modern method to change the lives of many within the shortest possible time,” he stated.

“I look forward to increase in public investment in agriculture starting from the first budget of my government. We must reverse the unfortunate trend for the past 8 years of a regulate decrease in public investment of the sector,” he stressed.

He revealed that 125 million Canadian dollars has been secured to support national campaign dubbed ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ initiate to stimulate the interest of Ghanaians into farming.

“To initiate the campaign, the District Assemblies will be tasked to identify and register farmers in each of the 216 districts. For too long, our farmers have been left to copy by themselves without the necessary support from government.

“We have decided to embark on a program to water to enable all-year farming; we are calling the ‘one village-one dam’ policy. It is a program that I expect to get the support of the population and to help to transform food insecurity in our country,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo further averred that there is a strong need to popularize farming by inciting many people to take it up for full or part-time activity and thus, irrigating the lands will make farming an interesting business to undertake.