Kumasi, Oct 12, GNA - The Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition has urged government to initiate and encourage pragmatic measures that will help boost the production of more local food crops, as a means of ensuring food security in the country.

It said investing in the production of local food crops, that meet international standards and also adaptable to the changing climatic conditions, was necessary, if the country were to boost its food stock, in the wake of the global food crisis. Mr Christopher Dapaah, Ashanti Regional Focal Person of the Coalition, indicated that, local foods, aside their nutritional values also had the potential to increase farmers' income, if the over-dependence on food imports were managed effectively. Addressing a forum on promoting local food materials in Kumasi, the Focal Person said, it was important that government also made it a policy to invest some percentage of the oil revenue into agricultural development at the grassroots, to help make it attractive for the youth in the rural areas.

This, he said, was crucial to reducing the high tendency with which the youth migrate to the urban areas in search of non-existent jobs, which come with its own difficulties, frustrations and negative socio-economic implications. The forum, organized by the Coalition, was structured to highlight the economic and nutritional values of local food crops. Mr Dapaah said the Coalition was committed to improving the livelihoods of the local farmer, as well as small and medium-scale enterprises, through advocacy and various intervention programmes and called for the needed support from stakeholders to help realize its objectives. Mr William Boakye-Acheampong, Regional Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, affirmed the government's resolve to promote the block farm concept, as a means to providing employment for the youth. It would also facilitate the establishment of mechanization services provision and machinery-hire purchase schemes, which had the objective of improving farmer's access to tractors and other farm equipment for increased yield production.