AGRICULTURE

40-Year old Daniel Adjetey crowned best farmer

40-year old Daniel Adjetey has been crowned the Akuapem North Municipal best farmer for the 2023 farming season.

Date Created : 12/4/2023 : Story Author : Ghanadistricts.com / Emmanuel Frimpong

He took home items such as tricycle, cutlasses, spraying machine, fertilizers and other agric inputs for emerging overall winner.
The young farmer and father of four cultivates 20 acres of maize, 25 acres of plantain, 30 acres of oil palm, 20 acres of cocoa and 2 acres of beans.

The rest include; 2 acres of coconut, 3 acres of tomatoes, 20 acres of mango and 5 acres of orange. Mr Adjetey also engages in financial support for the less privileged and provides casual employment for members of his community.

Speaking at this year’s event which was held at Adawso, a community in the municipality, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the area, Barima Asiedu Larbi underscored the various challenges in the agric sector such as climate change, limited resources and changing market dynamics, and need for innovative and sustainable solution to ensure a secured and resilient food system for the country.

He added that these challenges could be resolved by harnessing the power of digitization, precision farming and climate smart agriculture to optimize resource use and also minimize environmental impact.

He said smart solutions such as modern technologies, practices and policies that enhance productivity and sustainability in agriculture can be employed to improve the sector.

Touching on phase 2 of the planting for food and jobs program, the MCE opined that plans were far advanced for the program to kick start.

He insisted that the phase two of the program will help solve some challenges that were associated with the phase one like credit, bad agro inputs, unstructured market of agricultural produce, low mechanization among others.

On her part, Municipal Agri Director, Pearl Adu-Addy noted that the agric department has achieved some significant improvement in the productivity of the sector, adding that one of the key elements of these achievements is the government’s program planting for export and rural Development.
She disclosed that, a total of 43,920 oil palm seedlings were distributed to 404 farmers made up of 320 male and 84 female.
She adds that 41 farmers also benefited from coconut seedlings provided by the Tree Crop Development Authority.

She also added her voice to the phase 2 of the PFJ program, adding that the objective of the program is to ensure food security and resilience by improving the availability of agricultural input through an input credit system.

Meanwhile, this year’s event was on theme: “delivering smart solutions for sustainable food security and resilience”.