Parliament Approves $25m For Tractor Assembly Plant

Parliament has approved an amount of $25 million Indian Exim facility to establish a tractor assembly plant and fabrication of agricultural implements in Ghana.The Deputy Minister of Finance and MP for Ejisu, John Ampomtuah Kumah announced this at the maiden edition of the ‘Ghana Youth Agriculture summit’ aimed at

empowering the youth to take up food production in the country held in Kumasi. According to him, the establishment of the Assembly plant by the Akufo-Addo led goveerment is to enable Agriculture mechanization for commercial farming (replacing the cutlasses and hoes with machinery and equipment and farm

implements), and also Value addition of establishing smallholder factories to process and add value to agriculture produce in Ghana, like 1D1F.He explained that ‘’Ghana has huge potential to become the food basket of the world. We have available  land and the human resources required to turn us into a prosperous

agricultural nation. Agriculture is green gold, He added, As a son of cocoa farmers in Ghana, my observation is that to make agriculture attractive to the Youth. He encouraged the youth to see the prospects in agriculture and help position Ghana as the next global food basket.The Summit was on the theme; Agriculture - A

Solution to Youth Unemployment and Driver for Economic Development was organized in collaboration with the National Entrepreneurship Innovation Programme (NEIP]. The youth were urged to eschew the negative perception of agriculture and regard the sector as a full-time professional business with potential high

income earnings. They were also accordingly engaged to look beyond farming to appreciate the agricultural value chain and the opportunities therein to break away from the non-existing white-collar jobs.