The Tano South Municipal version of the 38th Farmer’s day celebration has been held at Drema Nkwaakyire under the theme “Accelerating Agricultural Development Through Value Addition”
Some awards on display for the occasion
The programme saw dignitaries like Municipal Chief Executive for Tano South, Hon. Collins Offinam Takyi, the Coordinating Director Mr. Augustine Peprah, Heads of Department, Nananom, and among others.
In an opening address, Mr. Paul Addai, the Tano South Municipal Director of Agriculture welcomed all farmers and other dignitaries to the programme and said the celebration of the farmers’ day helps farmers to access their strengths and weaknesses and reiterated this year’s farmers’ day is the 38th edition and hinted that Tano South Municipal Assembly has brought items to be distributed to the hardworking farmers.
He said farmers’ day is an annual event designed to honour deserving famers, fisher folks and those who directly or indirectly contribute to the development of agriculture. It is the fact that, Agriculture is the backbone of Ghana’s economy and it is evident in the era of COVID-19
Mr. Paul Addai, the Tano South Municipal Director of Agriculture addressing the gathering
pandemic and Russia Ukraine War. When the importation of commodities like rice, wheat, flour etc. became too difficult, our farmers stood their grounds to produce at least 50% for us locally and also made sure that our local produce like plantain, cassava, cocoyam, yam etc., were available in abundance to avert hunger. Farmers are the backbone of this country because we derive substantial foreign exchange earnings from their toils through the export of agricultural commodities, particularly cocoa. All these reflect the importance of agriculture to Ghana`s economic development ; the more reason why the farmers of this country should be celebrated and said the event has grown from a One-day Celebration at Osino in 1985, where the highest award given was a bicycle. Today the National Farmers day is now virtually a week – long celebration where prizes given include a One Hundred Thousand USD (USD 100,000.00) as seend money to expand farm business and operations, double- cabin Air – Conditioned Pick –Ups, tractors, outboard motors, refrigerators, corn milling machines, Television sets etc.
He further explained that theme earmarked for the celebration of 38th farmers day. According to him, “Accelerating Agricultural Development Through Value Addition” is appropriate due to the recent increase in food prices around the globe. It’s of great important to us in the Tano South Municipal and Ghana as a whole.
Value – added agriculture is a movement that has created a life of its own. It is an idea that has the potential to change the produce agriculture to a more meaningful product. Changing a raw material produce into a new product goes through a series of processes like, drying, roasting, extraction or any other form of processing that differentiates the product from the original raw produce. Adding value to agriculture products is a worthwhile enterprise because of the higher returns that come to open new markets and extend the producers marketing season.
He said, the Nation can only achieve accelerated agriculture development only when conscious efforts are made to add value to our agricultural produce. The accelerated development will come when we make conscious efforts to process the various agriculture products locally. Adding value will not only increase the income of farmers but it will also lead to employment and job creation along the value chain, increase the area under cultivation which will go a long way to bring about accelerated agricultural development making the country self-sufficient in food production and food security, the entire range of actors and their interlinked value- addition activities involved in the production, aggregation, processing, distribution and consumption is one area when looked at critically will help to reduce unemployment drastically.
He said, Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana (MAG) programme and the Government flagship programme, planting for food and jobs and planting for Export and Rural development is ensuring that there is enough food and raw materials to be processed. Production alone is not enough; we need to move a step further to add value to it to get the maximum benefits. It’s the value addition component which will keep our industries and factories running. He continue by saying it is at the back drop of this that the government has put up the Youth Enable Processing Center at Dwomo in our municipality to help process and add value to our oil palm produce and conscious effort is being made to distribute oil palm seedlings to farmers to help produce the raw material to feed the factory. A total number of 10,000 oil palm seedlings and 13,000 coconut seedling have been distributed this year to 374 farmers, comprising 203 males and 171 females. The department in collaboration with Tano South Municipal Assembly also intends to nurse and distribute 500,000 oil palm seedlings to farmers in the 2023 farming season.
He further said, MAG programme has also support Hope Rural Investment with processing equipment value at Ghc 25,000.00 to help add value to our cassava by processing it into gari and other products. Hope Rural investment through this support have expanded their farms and operation and is providing employment for our dear mothers and brothers who works at the processing site. He said to be able to produce enough raw materials to our rice mills and local feed industries by way of adding value to them, the department under government flagship programme, planting for food and jobs made available 1,035 bags of maize seed, 744 bags of rice seeds and 130,000 liters of orange liquid fertilizer. In all a total number of 13,052 farmers comprising 8,320 males and 4,732 females benefited from the programme.
In a keynote address to mark the 38th farmers’ day, the MCE for Tano South Hon. Collins Offinam Takyi thanked all farmers for honouring his invitation to attend the Municipality version of the 38th Farmers’ Day celebration and carried felicities of His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo to all participants.
He indicated that government under the leadership of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has vision to accelerate agriculture development through value addition and as a result, introduced the One District One Factory (1D1F) concept since its assumption of office in 2017. There are currently over 200 factories in operation under 1DIF whiles others are also at various stages of completion.
MCE for Tano South Hon. Collins Offinam Takyi giving his keynote address
Hon. Takyi said, This Municipality is also a beneficiary of the 1DIF programme through the establishment of a palm oil processing plant at Dwomo which is almost completed for processing of oil palm. It is pretty clear and there is no history around the globe, of any country that has been able to develop and improve its economic fortunes through the reliance of the production of raw materials or primary products without value addition. Our gallant farmers in spite of the several challenges are able to produce enough primary products for the country, what is left to be done is a concerted effort from all the value chain players to accelerate the processes to ensure value addition to improve the economic fortunes of our farmers and the country at large.
He said, our inability to add value to agriculture produces had made the country import dependent with the resultant persistent depreciation of the Ghana Cedis against major trading currencies. The COVID-19 and Russia-Ukrain War if for nothing, have thought the entire globe a lesson to institute measures domestically to improve agriculture production and accelerate value addition to our primary products as the only means to withstand such occurrences in the future. To ensure the reduction of our over reliance on imported product, the government in its 2023 Budget has identified rice, fish and poultry farming in the agriculture value chain to provide support for, and collaborate with all the stakeholders to improve production to cut down the importation of these products. Therefore, fish, rice and poultry farmers in the Municipality should also take advantage of the programme when it starts to improve production for the Municipality and the country as a whole.
He further said, the recent Bank of Ghana withdrawal of Foreign Exchange (FX) support for rice and poultry importers following the President’s directive in his address to the nation on the Ghanaian economy on 30th October, 2022 shows that the government’s commitment to protect the local producers of rice and poultry. We are all living testimonies to the bold and aggressive agriculture programme introduced by government in 2017 dubbed Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), with the aim to supply improved seeds and other inputs to our farmers at a very subsidized rate.
We all know how this programme has helped to improve yield/output of beneficiary farmers , one would ask, what would have happened to Ghana in terms of food security without the PFJ pragramme, considering the developments around the globe occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukrain war. through the implementation of the PFJ programme, a total of 1,035 bags of maize seeds, 744 bags rice seeds and 130,000 litres of organic liquid fertilizer were received and distributed to farmers.
In sum, 13,052 farmers made up of, 8,320 males and 4,732 females have benefited from the programme through the distribution of the aforementioned inputs. He use the opportunity to appeal to our gallant farmers to take advantage of such laudable government initiatives to improve their production capacity. The rational for the introduction of the PFJ programme by the government was to ensure food sufficiency for the country throughout the year. In addition to this, the government envisions to industrialize the country, hence, it introduced another agriculture led programme known as Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD).
He announce that the Municipality has also greatly benefited from the PERD programme. Under this programme, the government through the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development with funding from the Work Bank has assisted the Assembly to establish Oil Palm plantations at Dwomo, Derma and Tweapease and, Coconut plantations at Kwasu and Mansin under the first phase of the programme. the Municipality can boost of a total of 25 acres of coconut plantations at Kawsu and Mansin and, 37.5 acres of Oil Palm plantations at Dwomo, Tweapease and Derma. This programme is aimed at creating a raw material base for the One District One Factory initiative (1DIF) and also to encourage the export of selected products that are on a high demand at the world market.
And inform them that this Municipality has also been selected to benefit from the second phase of this programme. All the preparatory works are ongoing to start the full implementation of this phase of the programme. the government in its quest to ensure value addition for the agriculture value chain is establishing a Palm Oil processing factory at Dwomo under the One District One Factory (IDIF) initiative to use the palm fruits (raw materials) from the PERD programme and out growers to feed this factory to produce cooking oil for the Municipality and the country as a whole.
Under the PERD programme, 13,000 coconut seedlings and 10,000 Oil palm seedlings have been distributed to a total of 374 farmers this year. He said, Management in recognition of the contributions of our farmers and the difficulties they are enduring has included in its programme of activities and budget for 2023, the procurement of at least two power tillers for rent to our rice farmers at a subsidized rate to improve production of rice to feed the Municipality and the country at large.
Hon. Takyi said, join me to applaud our cherished farmers’ for their continuous commitment, dedication, selflessness and hard work in producing enough food to feed the people in the Municipality with the surpluses exported to the other part of the country.
The contribution of our farmers to the national development cannot be underestimated considering the daunting challenges our farmers are confronted with.
He once again commend the farmers for the great job done. To the awardees and again says congratulations to you all for your awards, and to the rest of our farmers, better luck next time.
Mr. Emmanuel Kwasi Appiagyei was adjudged the best farmer in the Municipality and was awarded with the items such as the tricycle popularly known as ‘’aboboyaa’’ and other items and urged his fellow farmers to work hard to make them be recognized in an ensuing years.
Mr. Emmanuel Kwasi Appiagyei the 2022 best farmer for Tano South addressing the gathering