2019 Farmers Day to focus on agribusiness – Gov’t

The government says it intends to gradually shift the focus of agriculture in Ghana from a subsistence farming approach to an agri-business approach using the 2019 national Farmers Day as a starting point.

Agriculture has for centuries been operated in Ghana as a subsistence activity with few practitioners focusing on it as a business. As a result, many young persons increasingly shy away from agriculture.

Minister for Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah at a news briefing in Techiman on Sunday, 8 September 2019 said the Akufo-Addo-led administration desires to engineer a paradigm shift and cause many more investors especially young persons to approach agriculture as a business.

Mr Nkrumah announced that the Volta region will host the 35th edition of the national Farmers Day celebrations on the theme: “Enhancing Small Scale Agriculture Towards Agribusiness Development”.

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta will on Wednesday, 11 September 2019 officially launch the 2019 Farmers Day celebrations with a focus of having a paradigm shift for the sector to see agriculture as a business that responds to the economic growth of the country and not just agriculture for purposes of farming to feed the household.

The National Farmers’ Day celebration offers a unique opportunity for a collective assessment of the impact of the farmers and fishers on the National economy. It also provides the opportunity to identify key problems in the sector and most importantly those that affect the welfare of farmers, thus facilitating the determination of the way forward.

Mr. Nkrumah disclosed that the one-day celebration will this year be replaced with an 8-day agricultural fair.

“The essence of the fair is to give opportunity to award winners and the good people of Ghana to see and learn new technologies, machinery, research innovations and improvements and processing of agricultural products by the various stakeholders in the agricultural sector,” Mr Nkrumah said.

Source: classfmonline.com