President launches ‘Yeridua’…to reduce imports, increase farmers’ incomes

President John Dramani Mahama has launched the Vegetable Development Project, another leg of the broader Feed Ghana Agricultural Transformation Agenda (2025 to 2028).

Under the vegetable project, also called Yeridua, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture would introduce climate-smart technologies, improve seed varieties, sustainable irrigation management techniques, and structured marketing arrangements.

It also makes provision for guaranteed off-takes, cold chain and packhouse infrastructure, capacity building for women-led businesses and youth entrepreneurs, and linkages to processing industries to promote value addition.

Launching the project in Kukuom in the Ahafo region on Thursday, President Mahama stressed that the vegetable sub-sector offers some of the highest returns in agriculture as it is labour-intensive, it has short cropping cycles, supports rapid income generation and provides healthy food options.

“When we strengthen the vegetable value chain, we’re strengthening household nutrition, we create jobs, we reduce imports and we increase farmers incomes. This is the vision that is driving today’s economy,” President Mahama said.

According to President Mahama, the launch of the Vegetable Development Project marked another significant step in his government’s reset agenda.

“As President, I wish to reaffirm government’s commitment to expanding infrastructure, supporting smallholder, medium and commercial farmers, providing mechanisation services, strengthening storage and markets, investing in agro-processing and value chains, building a resilient technology-enabled inclusive agricultural sector.

“With discipline, unity and a shared sense of purpose, we will feed Ghana, we will grow Ghana and we will transform Ghana,” he stated.

The agric sector, President Mahama said, would be the anchor of the 24-hour economic policy, which aims to ensure all-round work.

In this regard, he said farmer service centres were being established to provide mechanisation service, input supply, repairs and extension support and developing commodity-focused cooperatives to strengthen smallholder participation in the value chains.

“We’re improving storage, marketing and agro-processing capacity to reduce post-harvest losses and we’re enhancing market linkages, including institutional off-tickets, processes, hotels and major supermarket chains.

“Through these efforts, we’re laying the foundation for a 24-hour agricultural economy, an economy that is powered by technology, reliable markets and continuous production cycles.”

The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, said seeds to be planted were all locally-sourced to suit the Ghanaian climate conditions. He said government would provide the necessary farm inputs, including fertilisers, to ensure maximum yield.

BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI

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