Agricultural productivity in Ghana has witnessed a steady growth over the past two years due to the increased use of technology in the sector, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said.
He said technology had enabled the government to build a credible database in the agricultural sector to support efficient policy formulation and implementation.
The President was speaking at a panel discussion moderated by former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at the African Green Revolution Forum in Accra yesterday.
Also on the panel were the Vice President of Nigeria, YemiOsingbajo, the Prime Minister of Rwanda, EdouardNgirente and a representative of the African Union Commission.
The panelists were discussing the topic “Leveraging digital transformation to drive sustainable food systems in Africa.”
President Akufo-Addo indicated that the use of technology had enable the government to identify the number of people involved in agriculture, the activities they were engaged in, as well as their challenges.
The data from the sector, he added, had made the government’s approach in dealing with the challenges in the sector more efficient.
According to the President, technology has had a positive impact across the entire agricultural value chain, from production, through distribution to consumers.
“Data in the agriculture is much more comprehensive than ever before,” he said and indicated that Ghana with the growth in the sector, Ghana could produce to feed the entire West African region in the near future
President Akufo-Addo stressed the need for other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to increase the use of technology to increase agricultural production on the continent
“Food security is within reach if we can increase the use of technology in the agricultural sector,” he said and noted that Africans had the ability to produce more to achieve food security on the continent.
President Akufo-Addo also spoke about the need to reach out to the wider global markets in Asia, Europe and America, while increasing intra-regional trade
He said although Africa had a population of 1.2 billion which could be fully utilised through intra-regional trade, there were markets in other continents that Africans could connect with.
“We need alliances to get technologies that will help us penetrate those markets,” he said, adding, “but we first need to ensure that our production is efficient.”
The Vice President of Nigeria, on his part, said Nigeria was also exploiting technology aggressively to increase agricultural productivity and achieve food security.
Already, he said there were technology companies that had expressed interest in the agricultural sector and were linking producers to distributors and markets.
The Prime Minister of Rwanda also spoke about the need to use the Africa Continental Freetrade Area Agreement to increase intra-regional trade in agricultural products.
BY YAW KYEI AND JONATHAN DONKOR
