Tamale, Oct 08, GNA – The Pre-harvest Conference and Exhibition event has opened in Tamale to empower smallholder farmers, increase and enhance agri-knowledge, transact agribusiness, and showcase the latest of ingenuity in agricultural innovation and technology.
The two-day event will also afford farmers the opportunity to learn how to increase their incomes and promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth; how to overcome the challenges in marketing and pricing instability, as well as how to improve high and quality yields through appropriate production practices.
It is the foremost forum where all the actors, especially in northern Ghana’s agricultural sector, convene to deliberate and take action towards making the sector more productive and sustaining. This year’s event has seen a number of players in the sector exhibit their products and produce at the event.
This is the 10th edition of the annual Pre-harvest Conference and Exhibition organised by the Agrihouse Foundation, an agricultural interventions organisation, on the theme: “COVID-19 and Beyond: Solutions for Agricultural Transformation”.
Dr Sagre Bambangi, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in-charge of Annual Crops, who spoke during the opening of the event at the Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium in Tamale, listed government’s interventions in the agricultural sector, saying they were helping to boost food production and making incomes available to farmers.
Dr Bambangi have assurance of government’s continued investment in the sector to further sustain the gains to ensure that the sector was viable for all.
Mr Salifu Saeed, Northern Regional Minister, spoke about the prevailing peace in the Region and called on development partners to take advantage of the situation to invest in the area to create jobs, especially for the youth.
Mr Saeed said this would stop the migration of young people to the south in search of greener pastures.
Miss Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, Executive Director of Agrihouse Foundation, spoke about the impact of the event in the past nine years, saying it had provided long term market opportunities to about 97,000 less privileged farmers in the northern part of the country and “Boosted the capacity of over 400 farmer-based organisations and aggregators to step up their role as market actors.”
Ms Akosa added that the event over the past nine years also assisted farmers and over 300 agri-businesses to expand, as well as created an environment for new partnerships and “Provided a platform for more than 10,000 commodity buyers to establish business relationships for the marketing of their produce.”
She emphasised that “For instance, within three years, we have organised agribusiness boot-camps for the youth; technically and financially assisted young graduates to set up about 20 businesses. In two years, our women in food and agric leadership training programme have trained, mentored and empowered about 800 agro women from the Volta Region and beyond.”
She, therefore, appealed to “Chiefs, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Northern Regional Coordinating Council to allocate land to us where we can start building an Agric Project and event and training centre for the training of our young and promising youth, as well as women.”
GNA