The Bono East Region, with the support of the Ghana Tree Crop Development Authority, now produces coconuts in large quantities under the government’s Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) programme.
About 851 hectares of farmlands are under cultivation, and more than 4,942 metric tonnes of the commodity is being produced annually.
Mr. Kwasi Adu-Gyan, Regional Minister, announced this when addressing a regional durbar, organised jointly by the Regional Coordinating Council and the Regional Directorate of Agriculture under the auspices of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to mark the 38th National Farmers’ Day celebration at Atebubu in the Atebubu-Amantin Municipality.
He said coconut was both a medicinal and cash crop with diverse health benefits and could be processed for various uses for financial gains to farmers, families, communities and the country at large.
Mr. Adu-Gyan, therefore, emphasised that the region would continue to invest in its cultivation to increase productivity to create more wealth for the farmers and others in the value chain.
He said the region had abundant raw materials and had the potential to produce more through block and commercial farming ventures to feed the agro-processing companies in the region and beyond.
Mr. Adu-Gyan said that would also bring significant impact of the government’s One District, One Factory (1D1F) and other related agriculture policies and programmes like the PERD, Planting for Food and Jobs (PfFJs) and Rearing for Food and Jobs (RfFJs) on the socio-economic lives of the people.
He, however, reminded stakeholders of the government’s limited resources, saying it was thus crucial for private sector investors to step in and take advantage of the flagship agriculture programmes and their associated enabling environment created to establish value addition companies and businesses to assist the farmers.
Mrs. Cecelia Kagya Agyemang, Bono East Regional Director of the MoFA, reiterated the need for, particularly, the unemployed, both young men/women and adults, to venture into farming, saying, “it is a lucrative business venture,” and is also the surest way to address the nation’s food insecurity and other socio-economic challenges.
Mrs. Agyemang lauded the government for its agro-flagship programmes, explaining that “their implementation have made scarcity of food a thing of the past because there is abundance of food in the system which is guaranteeing food security.”
Mr. Belidon Yaw Ningantor, aged 43, was adjudged the Overall Regional Best Farmer and received a tricycle, mist blower, four bags of NPK fertiliser, five bags of ‘Aduanepa’ fertiliser and five knapsack spraying machines.
Mr. Ningantor engages in crop, livestock and poultry farming and is a farmer in the Atebubu Municipality.
