The Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) yesterday handed over a cheque for GH¢480,000 to the government for presentation to Mr James Obeng Boateng as his prize for being adjudged the 2018 National Best Farmer.
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, received the cheque on behalf of the government from the Managing Director of the ADB, Dr John Kofi Mensah, and presented it to Mr Boateng.
The presentation was in fulfilment of the bank’s commitment as the headline sponsor of the 2018 National Farmers Day.
It followed the acceptance of Mr Boateng’s business proposal on the use of the prize money by the bank.
Business proposal
Among other suggestions, Mr Boateng, in his proposal, pledged to use the money to improve his 1,000-acre farm at Nyinase, near Nkoranza in the Bono Region, and also use part to build a two-bedroom farmhouse, buy a tractor and four polytanks and also dig four mechanised boreholes.
The proposals also included the employment of 30 more workers, the bulldozing of five acres of land, the buying of seeds, feed, medications and tricycles, as well as the repair of access roads leading to his farm.
Mr Afriyie Owusu Akoto (left), Minister of Food and Agriculture presenting a dummy cheque to Mr James Obeng Boateng (right), the national best farmer for 2018 in Accra today
Commitment of ADB
In a brief statement before the presentation of the cheque, Dr Mensah pledged the bank’s continuous commitment to ensure that the agricultural sector remained a critical part of the national economic growth.
“To ensure this, we have expanded our Agricultural Department into an Agricultural Business Division, headed by a General Manager.“The Agribusiness Division has been departmentalised into Agricultural Value Chain and Agricultural Services Department, which captures all the sectors in agriculture.The department is available to facilitate loans and offer advisory services to customers in the crops, livestock, poultry, marine, cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruits and other export commodities,” Dr Mensah explained. Role of Agribusiness Division He added that the Agricultural Services Department was available to also facilitate loans, as well as offer advisory services to customers in agro-marketing, while the value chain infrastructure unit dealt with customers who were into haulage, warehousing, mechanisation and other agriculture-related businesses.“We have also decentralised the division and have dedicated agricultural desk officers at selected branches nationwide,” he said.Dr Mensah announced that soon, the bank would hold an agricultural business forum with key stakeholders within the sector […]
