By Priscilla Nimako
Ayetepah near (Tema), Dec. 11, GNA – The Ningo-Prampram District Assembly has marked the sixth year of the “Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana” (MAG) project, a strategic plan budgetary support grant from the Canadian Department for Foreign Affairs Trade and Development (DFADT).
Mr. Prince Ofori-Boateng, the District Director of Agriculture, said the fund was intended to support extension work to farmers through 18 activities, which include training sessions, sensitization seminars, and stakeholder engagement.
Speaking at an event to mark the project’s sixth milestone in the district, Mr. Ofori-Boateng said meetings had been organized for staff, farmers, processors, marketers and other stakeholders within the agricultural value chain.
Mr. Ofori-Boateng said the MAG programme, which started in 2017, had contributed significantly to the improvement of agriculture in the areas of improved pre-production, production, and post-production sections.
He said the ‘market-oriented’ approach of the MAG programme had fostered good collaboration along the agricultural value chain while new areas of job opportunities had been created.
Mr Ofori-Boateng said within and along the pre-production, production, as well as post-production stages of the chain.
He said the MAG programme followed two previous Canadian agriculture sector budget programmes supporting the implementation of Ghana’s Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP).
He said the first programme, Food and Agriculture Budget Support (FABS) provided CAD 20 million per year from 2004 to 2008 followed by a year’s CAD 15 million bridging programmes, leading to the Support to the Food and Agriculture Budget Support (SFASDEP) programme.
The CAD 110 million SFASDEP program ran from 2009 to 2013.
He said the MAG programme evolved from FABS and SFASDEP to respond to the decentralization of Ghana’s agriculture sector implementation responsibilities to Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) of the Ministry of Local Government taking into consideration lessons learned from the implementation of the earlier sector budget support programs.
Mr. Ofori-Boateng said through the MAG Programme, the conditional budget support and technical assistance would be provided to Ghana to respond to the objectives of the Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP), Medium Term Agriculture Sector investment programme (METASIP) and Ghana shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA II).
It is designed to address productivity and value chain development management to add value to farmers’ produce for increased incomes.
The MAG Programme focus attention on demand driven research and alternative methods of extension delivery with the objective of increasing productivity through intensive farming.
A robust and diverse extension delivery system will facilitate the dissemination of technologies to farm households, farmer-based organizations, out-growers of nucleus farms, and others.
He said the expected outcomes focus on the ultimate outcome of the MAG programme as a more modern equitable and sustainable agriculture sector that contributed to food security.
Mr Ofori-Boateng said the intermediate outcome was to increase the adoption of relevant, production-enhancing technologies by men and women farmers in Ghana; and increase the adoption of market-oriented approaches to farm management by farmers in Ghana.
He said it also increased private sector investment in sustainable agriculture input supply, production, marketing and processing in Ghana, and these expected outcomes were in line with the intended results of MOFA’s FASDEP and METASIP.
GNA