The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has revealed plans of his government to build 1,000 metric tones capacity of warehouses in each of the 216 districts of Ghana.
The facilities, according to the Ghanaian leader, will provide handling and storage base for the surpluses anticipated under his ambitious Planting for Food and Jobs initiative.
President Akufo-Addo revealed this when he addressed the country at the campaign launch of the Planting for Food and Jobs held at the Nana Bosomprah I Park, Goaso in the Brong Ahafo Region on Wednesday, April 19, 2017.
The Planting for Food and Jobs campaign is one of the priority projects of the President aimed at creating direct and indirect employment to an estimated 750,000 employed youth across the country.
Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, commenting on the warehousing facilities said the infrastructure when installed will be leased out to private sector operators to process, store and market farm produce.
“These facilities should provide the opportunity for a commodity exchange for the first time in the history of this country,” he noted.
He also disclosed that the government will use its procurement functions to create demand for the anticipated surpluses for the Planting for Food and Jobs campaign.
For instance, Dr. Akoto Afriyie said his ministry will enter to a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Health to ensure that purchases of foodstuffs to the School Feeding Program, colleges, hospitals and other state institutions give priority to the surpluses of the food to be produced under the Plantinf for Food and Jobs initiative.
The Planting for Food and Jobs program has an overall objective to produce enough food to feed the nation, export the surpluses, reduce the excessive food import bill and generate employment for the unemployed youth in agriculture and allied sectors.
