John Dumelo, the Deputy Minister-Designate for Food and Agriculture has stated government paying cocoa farmers well will deter farm sales to illegal miners commonly known as galamsey.
According to the member of parliament, many farmers are forced to sell their cocoa farmlands due to the low cocoa prices offered by the government.
Appearing before Parliament’s Appointments Committee on Tuesday, February 25, John Dumelo stated, “Giving cocoa farmers the right price will deter them from selling their cocoa farms”.
“The second one is also to restructure or structure the whole mining industry well so that wherever they mine, it wouldn’t be able to affect these cocoa farms. But I think that the main one is about pricing,” he added.
John Dumelo has called for more youth participation and engagement in the agriculture sector to contribute to its growth and also reduce unemployment rates in the country.
According to him, he has contributed to making the Agriculture sector one which has become attractive to the Ghanaian youth.
The Deputy Minister-Designate asserted that the population of the nation’s workforce in the Agric sector are predominantly old people, averaging 50 and 55 years, hence the need for more youth to venture into the space and ensure food security.
John Dumelo stressed that attracting younger people to the sector is crucial for its sustainability and growth.
He detailed, “Ever since I got into the agricultural space and also with the coming in of social media, anytime I make a post about agriculture and make it look exciting, I get a lot of engagements and people expressing their desire to enter the space. However, what I tell them is that not everybody can go into farming.”
You have a whole value chain; we have those who do the farm, those who hire the machines, those who sell agricultural inputs, and those who add value to the farm produce. Ever since I made it public that I am into farming a lot more young people have gone into agric which is a good thing.
If you look at the average age of farmers, they fall at 50-55 years, which is bad. So, we need more people to get into agriculture and we need more youth to drive the agricultural bus,” he stated.
John Dumelo also addressed the broader issue of unemployment, describing it as a national problem.
He assured that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government is committed to resetting the economy and creating employment opportunities, particularly in the agricultural sector.
“The unemployment situation is a national problem, and we in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are about to reset the economy of the country, we will make sure that we create employment opportunities, especially in the agricultural space”, John Dumelo added.
