The President of the Republic of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama has described Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, as “one of the best Ministers of Agriculture in the history of Ghana.”
The praise came during the launch of a new vegetable development project under the national agricultural strategy in Kukuom, the capital of the Asunafo South District.
Speaking at the event, the President underscored the importance of the fresh vegetable drive as part of efforts to improve food security, reduce import dependence, and empower smallholder and subsistence farmers across the country.
• In April 2025, he launched the Feed Ghana Programme, designed to transform the agricultural sector, boost domestic food production, stabilise food prices, create jobs, and supply raw materials for agro-industries.
Hon. Eric Opoku — who also serves as Member of Parliament for Asunafo South — has overseen a series of major interventions as Minister:
• As part of that programme, the Ministry has rolled out the YƐREDUA Vegetable Development Project, promoting vegetable cultivation through greenhouse farming, irrigation-supported open-field cultivation, and support for urban, peri-urban, and rural farmers.
• To encourage home gardening and household-level food production, the Ministry is establishing vegetable nurseries nationwide so families can easily access quality seedlings.
• In the poultry sub-sector, Opoku has spearheaded a broad revitalisation effort, including the Nkoko Nketenkete Programme — a backyard poultry initiative targeting women and youth — and a “Farm-to-Table” framework to support large- and medium-scale poultry farmers.
• Under these poultry reforms, the Ministry has distributed birds to thousands of households and is working to drastically scale up domestic poultry production, with the aim of reducing Ghana’s dependence on imported poultry products.
• As part of the revitalisation, the government has moved to establish agro-industrial facilities, including a state-of-the-art soya processing plant in the North — expected to provide reliable market for soybean farmers and feed into poultry feed value-chains.
• Through the “Feed Ghana” and allied programmes, the Ministry has expanded irrigation infrastructure, rehabilitated dams, and provided support for institutional farming — targeting schools, security agencies, religious institutions, and youth — to increase production of staples, vegetables and livestock, and reduce post-harvest losses.
At the same ceremony, President Mahama also broke ground for the construction of a chicken and meat processing centre at Bechem in the Ahafo Region — a project championed by Minister Opoku as part of the strategy to build Ghana’s poultry value chain and process locally produced meat.
The combined message from the launch and ground-breaking: under Eric Opoku’s stewardship, agriculture in Ghana is being recast from subsistence-level production to a diversified, agro-industrial sector — with emphasis on food security, import substitution, rural livelihoods, and value-chain development.
Observers say the new vegetable push and renewed investment in poultry and agro-processing bode well for the country’s long-term ambitions of food self-sufficiency and economic transformation.
Source: agrictoday.com.gh
