Chief Director at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Robert Ankobiah has noted that the vision of Agrihouse, ‘Livestock, Poultry and Fisheries Tradeshow (LiPF),’ is consistent with the vision of the Ministry, to promote the development of sustainable agriculture and thriving agribusiness sector.
He said the animal agricultural sector is a major contributor to the country’s transformational agenda of ensuring national food security and jobs and wealth creation.
“The sector also offers enormous opportunity for entrepreneurship, particularly for the youth, promotion of industrialization and improved quality of life and livelihood,” he added.
Mr. Ankobiah made these comments at the recent 3rd Livestock, Poultry and Fisheries Tradeshow, held in Accra, at the Afua Sutherland Children’s Park, over a period of two day, on the theme, “WE MOVE! W)N YAA”
He noted that the potentials of Ghana’s agricultural sector was yet to be fully tapped, “evidence of this is amply reflected in the annual importation of meat product for the country, valued at about 350 million Dollars,” he revealed.
He said this situation signals a weak animal sector seemingly incapable of meeting domestic demands, even though the country’s animal agric sector has the potential and ability to revert the undesirable situation.
“I can report that government through MOFA is doing just that to revamp the animal sector and agriculture in general. This has found expression in the roll out of the Rearing for Food and Jobs campaign launched in 2019 by the President,” he noted.
The goal of the project, he said, is to attain self-sufficiency through massive investment in the form of distribution, to improve breeds of livestock to farmers and the provision of modern infrastructure to relevant institution of MOFA.
Touching on governments response to the COVID-19 effects on the country’s various sectors, the Chief Director said, government through the ministry has rolled out a 100 billion Ghana cedis facility expected to be used over the next three years to cushion the economy.
“Under the allocation for agriculture, a 20 million Ghana cedis provision has been made for the development of poultry sub-sector. The intervention will significantly augment exisiting support in the sector, such as the African Development Banking funding support, to the Savanna Improvement Project to develop the poultry sub-sector,” he said.
He therefore commended Agrihouse Foundation for supporting the country’s animal agricultural sector with an interventional project like the Livestock, Poultry, and Fisheries Tradeshow.
“Today’s programme has deepened my optimism when one reflects on its purpose which is building capacity of animal farmers and actors along the value chain. I am confident from what I have seen that the outcome of this programme will be very useful for planning and decision making in the animal agric sector, going forward,” he noted.
