Govt to engage agric graduates in extension services

THE government plans to begin the recruitment of first degree holders in agriculture and related fields on short-term trainings in extension services and then deploy them nationwide to help farmers improve yields and fight diseases, the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo, has said.
He said this was as part of efforts to enhance agricultural production.
“We have decided, in consultation with the universities that all those who have done degrees in agriculture will be in a position to provide extension services to farmers,” he said at the GRAPHIC BUSINESS-Stanbic Bank Breakfast meeting series in Accra last Tuesday.
Mr Osafo Maafo spoke on the government’s plans of job creation through agriculture and industrialisation.
Financing agric
He assured that the government was going to create jobs with agriculture and industry and ,therefore, it was important to make funds available to support them although not free of charge. 
“Agric cannot borrow at the rate commercial activity like someone selling cloth can borrow at 29 per cent. We need to look at agriculture with special eyes. Therefore, we need to access funds which are reasonably cheap to enable agric to also access funds,” he said.
He said the situation where everybody was moving to Accra for a job was dangerous to the system and that the country has to decentralise industrialisation as a way of creating jobs.
Participants’ concerns
Some participants at the meeting expressed concern about the high import of goods into the country.
“Why is it that we have opened ourselves so easily and quickly to certain imports? Ghanaian rice is polished but can’t be sold. We are now importing all sorts of furniture. What is happening? Can’t we stop these nuisance imports?” the Board Chairman of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd, Professor Kwame Boasiako Omane-Antwi, asked.
The senior minister said the government would use taxation to fight high and unnecessary imports. 
Others contributors questioned how Ghana would get industry and agriculture thriving when most of such companies established in time past have collapsed.
A former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Ernest Aryeetey said Ghanaians needed to be more optimistic to correct the mistakes made over years.
“How do we strengthen them so they don’t collapse again? We must apply enough knowledge to things that we do. How do we introduce modern ways of farming when most of our farmers do not want to use improve seeds due to some myths? We need to research although theory is not everything but important,” he said. GB

Pull Quote
Agric cannot borrow at the rate commercial activity like someone selling cloth can borrow at 29 per cent. We need to look at agric with special eyes. Therefore, we need to access funds which are reasonably cheap to enable agric also to access funds.