Ghana’s agriculture export earnings are projected to increase to eight times of its current earnings in the next decade, the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has said.
He disclosed this when he took his turn at the Minister’s Press Briefing organised by the Ministry of Information today.
According to him, the projection was as a result of government’s interventions through its flagship programme, Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ). He added that the establishment of the Tree Crop Development Authority which seeks to regulate and oversee the production, processing, trading, and marketing of the six selected tree crops (cashew, shea, mango, coconut, rubber and oil palm) will also contribute to the projection.
Through this, Ghana’s agriculture earnings could see an increase of $16 billion in the next 10 years.
He mentioned that Ghana will soon exponentially increase its agriculture earnings as each of these crops could individually fetch the country as much earnings as cocoa does currently.
The Minister mentioned that Ghana had been a mono-agriculture economy for all these years. Before the arrival of cocoa in this country about 130 years ago, the country was producing rubber, oil palm, trading with the Europeans. Cocoa came and took over very quickly and has dominated the agriculture economy of this country all these years.
“The Akufo-Addo administration is determined that this monopoly should be broken, and he is doing this by putting into the ground seeds that in the next 8 to 10 years, this country is going to earn as much as we are earning from cocoa today which is about $2.5 billion a year that each of the 6 selected crops (cashew, shea, mango, coconut, rubber, and oil palm) will earn as much,” he added.
Ghana remains a major exporter of food products in the world. Currently, the country earns $2.5 billion through the export of cocoa alone.
Dr. Akoto also highlighted governments’ effort at attaining food security as the country’s average yield for its staple crops has over the years increased. Ghana’s maize production increased to 2,019,000 metric tons in 2020 despite the shortages in fertilizer supply. Rice production also increased to 919,000 metric tons with Soybean also recording an increase of 193,000 metric tons.
Explaining the increment, the Minister stated that the PFJ initiative was behind the increase in yields stressing that the initiative has helped addressed the immediate needs of food security to make sure the country produced enough food to feed the population and to make sure there were no threats to the amount of food fed to the population.
He reiterated that government would continue to provide adequate support to farmers through the improvement in extension service delivery and the provision of seeds to farmers so Ghana’s yield would continue on this positive trajectory.
Source: MOI (PR Unit)
