Accra, Feb. 25, GNA - Ghana cannot be a well-respected member of the community of nations if it continues to import food items produced in countries with less favourable climate, President John Evans Atta Mills said on Thursday.

He said tomatoes, onions, plantain and other food items are native to Ghana's climate, and Ghana also has land and the resources, including human resources, to increase food production and ensure food security. President Mills said Government has initiated a progressive agricultural policy towards increased food production and lower food prices. Delivering his second State-of-the-Nation address to Parliament on Thursday, President Mills said Government could have no excuses not to ensure food security and it was determined to make it easier for everyone to have enough food at affordable costs.

"We can have no excuses and when we seek the people's mandate, they will judge our success in this task." President Mills said Government has established a Buffer Stock Management Agency, to hold food security buffer stocks and intervene in the market when there was a glut.

He said the Agency would in the course of the year take over and rehabilitate the 12 warehouses of the erstwhile Ghana Food Distribution Corporation.

President Mills also said the National Pre-Mix Committee has been reconstituted and Beach Landing Committees have been formed to ensure efficient and transparent distribution of premix fuel to fishermen. He said that the uncertainties surrounding premix fuel distribution have virtually been resolved.

President Mills said that pair trawling is prohibited and the Navy has been instructed to apprehend all those who engage in that criminal activity which is destroying the livelihood of Ghana's hardworking fishermen and their dependants.

He said that the fertilizer subsidy programme would be extended to all crop farmers and Government would also accelerate the Youth-in-Modern Agriculture development programme.

The President announced that an idea of Agricultural Development and Investment Fund was being worked out as response to the Government manifesto to promote rural financial intermediation and to establish an Agricultural Development Fund.