General News of Wednesday, 7 March 2001

Source: GNA

Investors to cultivate cotton in Afram Plains

A team of Ghanaian, Israeli and American investors is to go into large scale cotton cultivation along the banks of the Afram lake in the Kwahu South and Afram Plains Districts of the Eastern Region.

The group would also cultivate crops like yellow corn, banana and groundnuts on a rotational basis to maintain the fertility of the soil.

Ms Ama Gyenfuaa-Darko, Managing Director of the Wood Ford Complex Ghana Limited, announced this when she introduced a ten-member delegation of the investors to the Kwahu Traditional Council at Mpraeso, on Monday.

She said the necessary arrangement had been completed with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to use water from the lake to irrigate the tract of land along its banks for large scale cultivating of cotton and other crops.

Ms Gyenfuaa-Darko said the project would cover about 120,000 (one hundred and wenty thousand) acres of land.

Mr David Miller, an Israeli and leader of the team said Wood Ford Complex, Agripacs and D. J. Miller Group of Georgia, Atlanta, in the USA, would jointly undertake the project, which would increase cotton production to feed local industries and for export.

The Omanhene of the Kwahu Traditional Area, Daasebre Akuamoah Boateng II, commended the companies for investing in the area to offer employment to the people and assured them of the council's preparedness to release land for early commencement of the project.