Government to Boost Perennial Crops

The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie has outlined measures to develop perennial crops in the country.

According to him, 463 million seedlings of would be raised and planted on 1.8 million hectares in the next 5 years.

At the-meet-the press encounter in Accra on Tuesday, he said “We have chosen six main crops which are Rubber, Cashew, Oil palm, Coconut, Coffee, Shea and Cotton”.

This, according to him, will ensure there is diversity on the part of cocoa and bring out the others just like Cote d’ivoire is doing.

“They are earning about 14billion dollars from perennial crops a year while Ghana’s focus on cocoa alone rakes in $2billion a year,” he stressed.

Touching on the cocoa, He said cocoa is now under the Subvention of their ministry and so they will monitor the situation closely.

According to him Cocoa production started growing up in the year 2010-11 until last 2years the year 2015- 2016 where it hit a low of less than 8000, however the ministry is willing to send the cocoa industry back to the 1million metro tons with all kinds of development coming up.

He mentioned cocoa mass spraying, fertilizer application, pruning and hand pollination, as the new interventions to increase productivity.

By: Abigail Karikari