The government of Ghana is committed to assist the development of the women and youth in agriculture to ensure that they are able to sustain their business as farmers. The agricultural sector seeks to be the most viable sector of employability in the country but the youth finds it unattractive to venture into it.
Steps have been taken by the government to make the sector lucrative for the youth and women with the introduction of government flagship programs like Planting for Food and Jobs, Rearing for Food and Jobs, etc. which seeks to disburse farm inputs on credit to the farmers.
Speaking to Agric Today, the National Programme Coordinator for Ghana Agricultural Sector Investment Programme, Mr. Klutse Kudomor said to ascertain such support from the government, the individuals have to come together to form a nucleus and this nucleus also has to form a cluster. According to him, these clusters are selected through validation workshops after which seeds and fertilizer together with pesticides and weedicide are giving to them on credit. He said the inputs are paid back through the nucleus farmer and the cluster driver after production.
To qualify a cluster to gain access to these inputs, Mr. Kudomor said the most critical thing is the land. Clusters should have their lands, have farmers who understand agribusiness and are able to produce to recover the money that is invested.
“There is no specific number of persons, but what we try to analyze is, whether the number of nucleus farmers under the cluster driver is enough for him to break even and that varies depending on the number of acres each farmer in the cluster has”, he added.
He concluded that any cluster that meets these requirements should report to the Youth in Agriculture or better still to the office of the Ghana Agricultural Sector Investment Programme for assistance.
