Parliament has approved a $25 million Indian Exim facility for the establishment of a tractor assembly plant and agricultural tool production in Ghana.
John Ampomtuah Kumah, Deputy Minister of Finance and Member of Parliament for Ejisu, made the announcement at the first edition of the ‘Ghana Youth Agriculture Summit,’ which was held in Kumasi and aimed at empowering the youth to take up food production in the country.
According to him, the Akufo-Addo-led government established the Assembly plant to enable agriculture mechanization for commercial farming (replacing cutlasses and hoes with machinery and equipment and farm implements), as well as value addition through the establishment of smallholder factories to process and add value to agricultural produce in Ghana, such as 1D1F.
“Ghana has the potential to become the world’s food basket,” he said. We have the arable land and personnel resources to transform our country into a thriving agricultural nation. Agriculture is “green gold,” as the saying goes.
“As the son of cocoa farmers in Ghana, my opinion is that to make agriculture appealing to the youth,” he continued.
He urged the youth to see the opportunities in agriculture and to assist Ghana become the world’s next food basket.
The summit, titled “Agriculture – A Solution to Youth Unemployment and a Driver for Economic Development,” was co-hosted by the National Entrepreneurship Innovation Programme (NEIP).
The youth were encouraged to change their attitudes about agriculture and see it as a full-time professional enterprise with high-income possibilities.
They were also encouraged to look beyond agriculture to recognize the agricultural value chain and the opportunity to break free from non-existent white-collar occupations.