The much touted campaign promise of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to construct a dam in every village in the three Northern regions will begin this year.
President Akufo-Addo said already, many of the little dams that had been abandoned have been rehabilitated and brought back into use.
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“A deliberate and specific intervention to help farmers is paying off” he stated in his second State of the Nations Address to Parliament on Thursday January 8, 2018.
President Akufo-Addo said farmers especially in the north will see that the government is putting resources to back up the usual words.
He also revealed that, the 50% subsidy on fertilizer, and the increase in the provision of extension services, are making a great difference to the performance of Ghanaian agriculture.
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The President said under the Planting for Food and Jobs scheme, we are witnessing a fresh interest in farming.
“The success of the first year has encouraged us to increase the scope of the programme, and, this year, some half a million farmers would be signed on, up from the figure of two hundred thousand (200,000)” he stated.
President Akufo-Addo said the past year, they made sure that the close season was respected not just by the industrial tuna vessels, but, also, by the trawlers.
“We have identified 100 dams in five regions across the country – Upper East, Upper West, Northern, Volta and Western – and stocked them with fingerlings. This is the start of big things to come” he stressed.
“Agriculture forms the backbone of our flagship 1-District-1-Factory programme. The majority of the proposals that have been evaluated and accepted for support under the scheme are agro-based”.
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He commended the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Afriyie Akoto for making agric attractive especially to the youth.