Techiman, Bono East, May 8,
The Techiman Municipal Directorate of Agric says the phase one of the government’s flagship Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative was highly successful with more than 80 per cent impact on Ghana’s food security and economic growth.
To Mr. Stephen Aidoo, the Techiman Municipal Agri Director, Ghana saw overwhelmed improvement in the nation’s food security with the intervention of the PFJ implementation in 2017.
He spoke to thefourlens.com News in an interview on Tuesday, on the sidelines of a stakeholders engagement workshop held at Techiman, on the implementation of the phase two of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ 2.0) project model.
He said through the PFJ 1 program, his the Techiman Municipality witnessed abundance of food, as well as jobs opportunities for youth in the area.
Mr. Aidoo cited between 2016 and 2021, Ghana saw an increased in domestic rice production from 570,000 metric tons to 1,143,000 metric tons.
The engagement by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture was to ascertain the understanding of farmers who were the direct beneficiaries of the PFJ and how visibility of the PFJ 2.0 program can be improved.
It was attended by Peasant Farmers, Agric Extension Agents and District Directors from Wenchi, Techiman, Sunyani West, Kintampo, Nkoranza and the Ahafo Region.
It was also to gather feedbacks from the participants, their challenges identified and proposed solutions for the successful implementation of the PFJ 2.0 in 2024.
The PFJ 2.0, according to the MoFA was a contract farming program between an aggregator (private farm input dealer) and farmers.
With the PFJ 2.0 project, no cash payment is required, farmers would get their inputs after successfully signing on to an application (farmer app) and placed their requests, for the aggregator to supply to them at their disposal and pay with farm produced after harvest.
Thefourlens.com
Writer’s email: ttchrietoph1@gmail.com
