Business News of Sunday, 28 April 2013

Source: GNA

Fertilizer subsidy to be reviewed - Kofi Humado

Mr Clement Kofi Humado, Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) has warned that government may be forced to withdraw fertiliser subsidy if the facility continue to be subjected to abuse.

The sector minister gave the warning when he interacted with personnel of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and farmers in the Upper East Region at the weekend.

He said the increase in the price of fertiliser was due to the smuggling of the commodity and asked farmers to bear with the situation.

Mr Humado asked the security agencies to increase their monitoring role at the borders to curb smuggling of the product.

The sector minister said the farmers would be exposed to Northern Rural Growth Project to be abreast of technological know-how as well as the value chain development approach to boost productivity.

He said the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) was also established to among other things enhance their yield.

Mr Humado said MOFA is reviewing a lot of policies including its human resource base, which includes the recruitment of more extension officers to help farmers in modern farming technologies.