The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has urged the Agricultural Development Bank to accelerate the disbursement of funds meant for agricultural purposes under the Ghana CARES Programme.

According to the Acting Chief Director, Robert Ankobiah, GH¢20 million has been allocated to the livestock sector in the agricultural value chain, hence, accelerating the disbursement process will bring hope to the sector.

He made the call while speaking at the third Livestock, Poultry and Fisheries Training and Tradeshow.

“The CARES Programme or what they call the Obaatanpa Programme is designed to bring some stabilisation in the economy and revitalise enterprises. The agricultural sector happens to be one of the few selected productive sectors to benefit from the facility. For agriculture, we presented our programmes and priorities and I’m glad to report that the animal sector featured, and an amount of GH¢20million has been allocated.”

“There’s hope, I would only like to appeal to ADB to fast track their disbursement,” he said.

General Manager for Agribusiness at ADB, Kwame Asiedu Attrams revealed that the bank has rolled out GH¢50 million to revive the livestock sub-sector. He reassured ADB’s commitment to supporting the agricultural sector.

“There are different kinds of financing for different levels of production and companies. Therefore, it is very helpful to know what you qualify for because the dynamics for accessing each of these are different. We remain committed to stepping up our support to the industry as the leading bank supporting agriculture in Ghana and encourage many others especially the banks to do so,” he assured.

Chief of Party for the Ghana Poultry Project, Carienne de Boer, called on commercial and development stakeholders to invest in agriculture to ensure food security in the country.

“Participating and investing is key to further improve the sector. To ensure a striving sector on a sustainable basis, we call on all commercial and development actors and stakeholders - banks, foreign missions and sector firms - to prioritise food security by investing to build sustainable and inclusive market systems for agriculture in Ghana,” she emphasised.

Agrihouse Foundation organized the third Livestock, Poultry and Fisheries Training and Tradeshow.

The Livestock, Poultry and Fisheries Training and Tradeshow was created to close the gap that existed between the livestock and crop sectors in the Ghanaian agricultural industry.