Farmers in the Central Tongu Municipality have been registered and given farm inputs under the planting for food and job (PFJ) initiative.
The farmers, who are made up of 5,316 females and 8,658 males were given maize seeds, rice seeds and fertilisers at subsidised prices.
Mr. Thomas Moore Zonyrah, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Central Tongu said this at a first Meet the Press programme organised by the Central Tongu District Assembly to inform the public on the various government’s flagship programmes in the District.
He said measures are in place to ensure fairness in the distribution of the inputs, adding that five private agro input dealers, based at Bakpa Avedo, at Adidome and the rest at Mafi Kumase have been duly registered under the PFJ programme to distribute the subsidised inputs.
The DCE said more farmers are being enrolled on the PFJ initiative as the government works assiduously to handle developments that will be impediment to the programme saying “there have been periodic training of farmers by the District Agriculture Extension officers on the infestation of maize fields by fall army worms and their mode of control through radio programmes.
He said the government has also sent out 5 different insecticides and has been distributed to the people to be used to control the fall army worms.
Mr. Zonyrah said the District is benefiting from the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) Programme, another flagship programme of the government which is being run in conjunction with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
He said mango and cashew seedlings have been distributed to a total of 6, 074 farmers with some 2, 410 enrolled under the PERD programme, adding that “plans are underway to distribute coconut seedlings by next year”.
The DCE called on the citizenry to stop politicizing these flagship programmes and get enrolled to help address the declining growth of Ghana’s Agricultural Sector as well as reduce food import bills to the barest minimum.
He urged the people of the District to cast a resounding “Yes” vote in the forthcoming referendum and not to allow the negative views on social media to dissuade them from believing in the New Patriotic Party.
