General News of Saturday, 19 May 2018

Source: ghananewsagency.org

One million farmers to benefit from PFJs by 2020 - Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo

More than one million farmers are expected to benefit from the Planting for Food and Jobs (PJF) programme by year 2020, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has said.

The programme aimed to promote job creation, reduce poverty and ensure national food security, is one of the government’s flagship programmes in the agriculture sector and was launched in April, 2017.

President Akufo-Addo said they would continue to put in more resources to boost food production and returns to transform the lives of the people.

He was addressing the chiefs and people of Busunya, a farming community in the Nkoranza North District at the start of his three-day working visit to the Brong-Ahafo Region.

The President was accompanied by Ministers of State and Members of Parliament (MPs) including Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr. Dan Kwaku Botwe, Minister of Re-organisation and Development and Major Derek Oduro, Deputy Minister for Defence.

He said 15 per cent of all resources under the PFJ programme had been invested in Brong-Ahafo and encouraged farmers in the region to take advantage of that and register to benefit from the programme.

So far, 200,000 farmers across the country had benefited from the programme, and the target is to cover in excess of 500,000 farmers by the end of December this year.

He assured the people that the government was determined to go the extra mile to build a society that worked for everybody.

They would keep faith with the people and would not disappoint.

Nana Okofo Nyarko II, the chief of Busunya, appealed to the government to do everything to fix bad roads in the area.