The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has procured 506 motorbikes for newly recruited agricultural extension officers to enhance their operations and improve support services for farmers across the country.

The sector minister, Eric Opoku, said the motorbikes would be distributed to the officers within the next two weeks after they are registered in the name of the Ministry.

He explained that the move was part of efforts to address longstanding challenges within the agricultural extension system, particularly the heavy workload placed on the limited number of officers currently available.

Addressing Parliament’s Assurance Committee on Thursday, July 9, Mr Opoku said the ideal situation was for one extension officer to serve not more than 500 farmers, but the current reality was that many officers were responsible for far more farmers.

“One extension officer should serve a maximum of 500 farmers. Unfortunately, in our part of the world, one extension officer is serving 1,500-plus farmers,” he said.

“How can such an officer be effective in the delivery of his mandate?” he questioned.

The minister noted that the government had taken steps to increase the number of extension officers in the country but was implementing the recruitment process gradually due to financial constraints.

“We have decided to employ a lot of the extension officers. But looking at the fiscal constraints, we are doing it in bits,” he said.

He said the first phase of the exercise involved the recruitment of 506 extension officers, all of whom had been provided with motorbikes to enable them to effectively reach farmers in their assigned communities.

“The first one we have done is the 506 we have recruited. All 506, we have procured their motorbikes,” Mr Opoku stated.

According to him, the motorbikes were ready for distribution, but the ministry had to complete the registration process before they could be handed over to the officers.

“In fact, yesterday, the motorbikes were ready, but we decided not to distribute them because we have to register them in the ministry's name before we hand them over to our officers,” he said.

Mr Opoku added that the Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture would oversee the distribution exercise once the registration process was completed.

The minister said the newly recruited officers would be deployed strategically to areas where their services were most needed to maximise their impact on farmers.

He also encouraged private sector players in the agricultural sector who require extension officers to formally apply to the Ministry for support.

“If a private entity needs the services of some of these extension officers, they can apply to us, and the ministry is ready to deploy accordingly,” Mr Opoku said.

He disclosed that the Ministry had already received requests from some private entities and had begun responding to those demands.

“We have already received some requests, and yesterday we acted on some of them because agriculture in Ghana is entirely private sector-led,” he said.

Mr Opoku stressed that the government’s role is to create the right conditions for private sector participation while providing the necessary support to strengthen the agricultural sector.