A 39-year-old carpenter from Bampenase Asamanya, Mr Amos Boateng was on Friday crowned the overall best farmer in the Kwabre East District of Ashanti.

This was at the 28th farmers’ day celebration held at Kenyase.

He received a table top fridge, a bicycle, a radio cassette recorder, three cutlasses, full piece of wax print, wellington boots, a spraying machine and two bars of soap.

Mr Boateng has a large palm and orange plantation farms, among other crops, and rears variety of animals and livestock as well as owns a fish pond with about 5,000 fishes.

Twenty two (22) other farmers were also awarded at the ceremony which attracted a large crowd of people.

Madam Abena Wusuaa of Kenyase, was adjudged the first runner-up and took home a 21-inche colour television, two cutlasses, half piece of cloth, a knapsack spraying machine, wellington boots and two bars of soap.

The district best youth farmer, went to Mr Kwame Oppong Mansuo, a teacher. He received a sewing machine, a half piece of wax print, wellington boots and two bars of soap.

All the other awardees received prizes ranging from Knapsack spraying machines, herbicides, cutlasses, pieces of cloth and others for their efforts.

The theme for this year’s celebration was “Grow more food, strengthening farmer-based organizations for market place bargaining power”.

Mr Iddisah Adams, District Chief Executive, said government had initiated a number of programmes to promote agricultural development and growth in the district.

Among them are fertilizer subsidy, mass cocoa spraying exercise as well establishment of funds to provide credit facilities to farmers to expand their operations.

Mr Adams advised farmers in the district to form associations to enable them benefit from financial assistance to expand their farms and increase production.

Mr Samuel K. Semakor, the District Director of Agriculture, congratulated the award winners for their hard work and promised government’s support to help them expand their activities.

He expressed concern about sand winning activities currently taking over farm lands in the district and appealed to chiefs to take a second look at the situation since that was affecting food production.

Mr Kofi Frimpong, Member of Parliament (MP) for Kwabre East Constituency, advised farmers to adopt new methods of farming to suit the changes in weather to enable them increase yield.

He advised the youth in the area to go into farming since it was a profitable business venture.

Mr Boateng, the best farmer thanked government for the honour and called for pragmatic measures such as ready market for their produce, credit facilities to help motivate the youth to go into farming.