Tamale, Dec. 6, GNA - Government has initiated a four million- US- dollar Livestock Development Programme (LDP) to benefit more than 21,000 livestock farmers in the country.
In this connection government has entered into a bilateral engagement with the government of Argentina to provide technical and financial assistance in a bid to increase productivity within the livestock sub-sector.
President John Evans Atta Mills announced this at the silver jubilee celebration of the National Farmers Day held in Tamale on Friday. The theme for this years celebration was: "Accelerated Agriculture Modernisation for Food Security and Economic Transformation." President Mills said for the next three years government targets among other things to make the country self-sufficient in rice production and also introduce local production of yellow maize for the livestock industry. Government would also increase by 25 per cent the volume and value of new agriculture exports and establish a country wide youth in agriculture programme based on science and driven enterprise development approaches. President Mills said as part of measures to protect the cocoa industry against the possible reduction in external demand, the government would increase the local consumption of cocoa products. In this regard, he urged Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to adopt a marketing strategy of providing dispensers to vendors to provide both cold and warm cocoa drink to consumers.
The President also asked COCOBOD to link local consumption of cocoa products, especially chocolates with traditional festivals and festive occasions.
He urged authorities of the National School Feeding Programme to consider providing a cup of cocoa drink a day to every school child. Reacting to concerns raised by the Agriculture Workers union to the effect that, the farmers day celebrations was not making any impact on the life of farmers, President Mills gave the assurance that his administration would not pay lip service to the agricultural sector.
He said government would show commitment to agriculture through legislation and funding to support the growth of the sector. President Mills said for instance the Agriculture Development Bank was undergoing restructuring to enable it execute its core mandate of making affordable funding available to the agriculture sector. Mr. Kwesi Ahowi, Minister of Food and Agriculture announced the release of five new varieties of high yielding and disease resistant rice by the National Variety Release Committee.
The new rice varieties were developed over the past five years by the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute and the Crop Research Institute of the council for Scientific and Industrial Research in collaboration with the Agriculture Ministry.
The new rice varieties include: Gbewa, Nabogu, Katanga and Nerica one and two, all of which have a maturity periods ranging from 95-130 days.