Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), says Ghana’s progress will depend on its focus on agriculture for development.

Therefore, he would make agriculture his priority, if given the nod as president.

“Agriculture is going to be my number one priority. We will make sure that we have all the different pillars in place for farmers,” he said.

Dr Bawumia made the point when he called on the Sandem-Nab, Nab Azaksuk Azantilow, Paramount Chief of the Builsa Traditional Area in the Upper East Region on the first day of his four-day campaign tour to the region.

He said the next NPP government under his leadership would establish District Agricultural Mechanization centres across farming districts to provide agricultural equipment at affordable rates to farmers to expand production.

“I want to bring in the best practices from countries like Brazil and China that have higher productivity in crops such as maize and rice…” he said.

“…And we want to also learn from them to adopt some of those technologies that are giving them two or three times the yields per acre that we are doing”.

Dr Bawumia said the use of chemical fertilizers were not only expensive but destroyed the soil.

“I want Ghana to move away from chemical fertilizers for our soil to lime. Lime is the way forward. We have limestone in Ghana and is much cheaper than the fertilizer, and we want to help the farmers with this new soil fertility treatment through lime,” he said.

On rural electrification, the NPP Flagbearer promised the chiefs and people of Sandema to make sure he had a 100 percent policy based on which every community would have electricity.

“The same thing applies to telephone network, because I want a digital Ghana, so that everybody will have telephone connectivity.”

Dr Bawumia appealed to the people to vote massively for him as president and the parliamentary candidate for the area, Mr Thomas Kofi Alonsi, to enable them to implement their well thought through plans for the entire country.

Mr Alonsi, on his part, touted the projects and social interventions initiated by the government and said those could only continue if constituents voted for Alhaji Dr Bawumia and himself to carry on the projects.

The Vice President was accompanied by some Ministers of State, former government appointees, National and Regional Party Executives, and Members of Parliament.

Notable among them were Mr Dominic Nitiwul, the Minister of Defence, Mr Mustapha Ussif, Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Ambrose Dery, former Minister for the Interior, and Alhaji Dr Hafiz Bin Salih, Upper East Regional Minister, Mr John Boadu, former General Secretary of the NPP and Madam Tangoba Abayage, former Upper East Regional Minister.

The rest were Madam Vida Akantagriwen Anaab, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for the area, Mr Anthony Namoo, the Regional Chairman, NPP, Mr Arimeyaw Somo Lucky Basintale, West Mamprusi MCE, Mr Danladi Abdul-Nashir, former MCE for the East Mamprusi, and Mr Fuseini Nurudeen, the North East Regional Chairman, NPP.