Mr Fiifi Kwetey, Minister of Food and Agriculture, on Wednesday said prioritisation of agriculture was the most essential thing for Ghana’s socio-economic development.

He said other sectors of the economy such as oil and gas and mining were essential but agriculture’s contribution was much more important in poverty alleviation and food security and thus served as the engine for economic growth and improved livelihoods.

Mr Kwetey said this in Accra at a Policy Symposium on the theme; “Decentralisation of MoFA: Constraints and Opportunities for Sustainable Food Production”.

The workshop, which is the first of five Policy Workshops being organised by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture MoFA, was under the sponsorship of the Department of Foreign and International Development, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Development Research Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa (DRUSSA) and the United Kingdom Aid.

The Minister called for a transition that would make farming become a prominent business adventure, which would attract more young people into agriculture; stating that it would pave the way for farmers to become profitable.

Mr Kwetey said it was a disgrace that Africa, with its huge natural resources, was still ravaging under poverty and hunger, which could be easily addressed when attention was given to the agricultural sector.

He urged metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives to give true meaning to the government’s policy of decentralisation, by being good co-ordinators of all departments under them.

Dr George Owusu Essegbey, Director of Science and Technology Policy Research Institute of CSIR, said there was an important connection between sustainable food production and achieving and sustaining competitiveness.

He said the whole of the West Africa Sub-Region was a veritable market for food export, declaring that “if we can build capacity to produce food with value addition in the sub-region competitively, we are positioning ourselves to be a major economic player in the sub-region, and from the sub-region, we can even extend to other parts of the world”.

He said the policy symposia in line with DRUSSA Programme were meant to provide a platform to simulate debate and reflect on the options available for policy making based on robust research evidence.