Tamale, Dec 3, GNA - Mr. Philip Abayori, President of the National Farmers and Fishermen Award Winners, on Friday appealed to the government to take bold and pragmatic decisions to reverse the fallen trend in agriculture production to guarantee farmers' income.

Speaking on behalf of farmers and fishermen at the 25th anniversary of the national farmers' day celebration at Tamale, Mr Abayori said contrary to the views of some experts that the agriculture sector is doing well, it is rather on the decline.

This, he said, was evident in the mass importation of agricultural produce into Ghana and rendering farmers and fishers into poverty and joblessness.

"The harder we work, the lesser we earn and poorer we become," he said. Mr Abayori said the rice and cotton industries, which used to be the pride of the northern sector, had collapsed because of unbridled importation, resulting in unemployment and drift of the youth to the cities in search of non-existing jobs. He, therefore, urged government to fully implement decisions that would benefit the country and the citizens in the quest to modernise and fully commit resources into the agricultural sector. Mr Abayori stressed the need for private/public partnership as a means to agricultural transformation. He emphasised access to credit of farmers and fishermen as one of the key difficulties that must be addressed in addition to inadequate machinery, implements and subsidies. "Even with the least credit that sometimes become available in a blue moon, interest rates are so exorbitant, making it a disincentive to our farmers to take loans and even if they do repayments often become difficult," Mr Abayori said. He appealed to the government to consider setting up an agricultural fund to which monies generated from tariffs on imported food items specified in the 2010 budget would be channelled to promote agriculture development.