John Dramani Mahama has disclosed his party’s commitment to ensuring a good number of the youth are incorporated into agribusiness entrepreneurship.
Agriculture, according to the flagbearer remains the backbone of the Ghanaian economy. However, despite several policies and programmes to enhance the sector in areas such as “irrigation and mechanization, credit facilities and incentives to farmers and fishermen, among others, the potential of the sector has not been fully harnessed thereby contributing less to economic growth”.
“The NDC government will attract 30 per cent of school leavers into primary agriculture and agribusiness entrepreneurship by providing agronomic and extension services support for production and agro processing for the youth, operationalising 60,000haof YEA supported commercial farms across agricultural districts”.
Speaking at the manifesto launch, John Mahama iterated his commitment to establish a cashew development board to coordinate cashew-related issues and also “use coordinated strategies and investments in agriculture and agribusiness to secure livelihoods and increased prosperity for all Ghanaians”.
As part of his focus in aligning infrastructure development to key agro-productive zones he intimated that this can be achieved via the development of agro-productive zones and also “align appropriate infrastructure to facilitate agriculture and agribusiness using PPP models, establishing agro-industrial parks to support backward and forward linkage”.
The next NDC Government will reposition agriculture and agribusiness as the key driver for Ghana’s economic growth and development, John Dramani Mahama disclosed during the unveiling of the party’s 2020 manifesto.
“The next NDC government will set agriculture as the central focus of the economic policy by using agriculture as a tool to contribute to managing the exchange rate increasing direct budget expenditure on agriculture as a share of total budget expenditure from the present seven (7) per cent to at least ten (10) per cent doubling the value of domestic, and intra-regional and global export demand in agricultural services, commodities, and manufactured products”.
As part of the party’s decision in taking advantage of the emerging opportunities in ECOWAS and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to expand our market, John Mahama posited that when elected, his government will see to “enhancing foreign direct investment (FDI) and domestic direct investment (DDI) in agriculture and agribusiness”.
Also, he stated that his government will be heavily involved in reducing the cost of capital in agricultural investment using creative programmes and also “encouraging senior public and civil servants, the middle class and heads of private institutions to personally invest directly in agriculture”.
Considering the financial handicap nature of the sector, the NDC flagbearer pledged his support through the provision of financial incentives and also collaborating with some institutions such as TVET institutions to activate agriculture-related entrepreneurship training and skills development
“The NDC government will incentivize the financial sector to devote a sizeable amount of credit to primary agriculture and agribusiness, restructure rural credit and the Ghana Eximbank to improve credit to strategic agriculture, agribusiness activities, and related infrastructure.
Also, “minimize credit risk to the agriculture and agribusiness sector, reduce the cost of credit and improve the security required for accessing credit,” he stated.
