Farmers registered under the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJs) have been called to form associations or groups to enable them to access credit facilities to expand their farming activities.

Mr Gilbert Sonkpi, the Sunyani West District Director of Agriculture, said farming is a lucrative business and the PFJs’s secretariat at district levels are ready to assist beneficiaries who form groups or association to access loans from banks.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Mr Sonkpi said it is untrue that farming is a reserve for the poor in society, saying the implementation of the PFJs had opened opportunities for farmers to do commercial farming as a business entity.

He said the PFJs’s secretariat could guarantee collateral security to pave the way for interested farmers registered under the PFJs to access financial support.

Mr Sonkpi said the government has made available enough seeds, farm inputs, agrochemicals for farmers to buy at subsidised costs adding that the inputs could be supplied to farmers who come together on credit as well.

The District Director of Agriculture advised farmers who have not registered with the PFJs to do so to access seedlings for planting and called on traditional authorities to release lands to interested youth to engage in farming.