Fresh feasibility studies for irrigation project

Story: Abdul Aziz
10/03/08
The Government has ordered fresh feasibility studies into the reactivation of the Accra Plains Irrigation Project.
Mr J. H. Mensah, the Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), speaking at the launch of the World Development Report (WDR) by the World Bank in Accra, said the project was being financed by the Government of Ghana with grants from the Kuwait Fund.
Mr Mensah, who was a member of the team that fashioned out the Seven-year Development Plan of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) government of Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the 1960s said the irrigation of the Accra Plains was an integral part of the Akosombo hydro-power project.
He explained that the proposals to the World Bank, however, did not receive the approval of the bank subsequently, that component of the project was abandoned.
The senior minister observed that with the launching of the World Development Report with agriculture as its priority, the World Bank would give financial and technical assistance to complete the project and provide sustainable employment to farmers to help raise their standard of living.
Mr Mensah said Ghana was an agricultural country and any assistance in that sector would enable the country to feed itself and ensure food security for peasant farmers.
Mr Ernest Debrah, Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), said the government had been successful in reducing poverty by 50 per cent, far ahead of the 2015 set target.
He said this had been made possible by the allocation of about 10 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to agriculture and related activities such as access roads to food-growing areas and markets.
He said the next step to ensure that the growth in agriculture was sustained was to combine factors such as land, labour and technology for increased production.
Mr Debrah said the era for Ghanaian farmers and Africa was here with the arrival of biofuels which required farmers to crop.
Mr Derek Byerlee, Director in charge of WDR, who presented the report, said the report called for greater investment in agriculture in Africa and warned that the sector ought to be placed at the centre of the continent’s development agenda.
The report said the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 could only be realised by giving agriculture the required attention.
The report praised the positive story of Ghana in accelerating agricultural growth above the average for Africa, especially in cereal production and horticultural products such as pineapple and mangoes for export.
The report, however, deplored the alarming rate of deforestation (1.7 per cent) taking place in the country, which was the highest in the world.