President of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Mr Wepia Addo Awal Adugwuala, has welcomed the decision by the President-elect, John Dramani Mahama to rename the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to the Ministry of Food and Agribusiness.

“This is the way to go. We must begin to look at Agriculture as a business and not a way of life.”

Mr Awal Adugwuala was speaking to Ghana News Agency in an interview in Takoradi.

As part of the policies of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the President-elect, Mr Dramani Mahama, has announced plans to rename the Agriculture Ministry to make Agricultural practices attractive and lucrative to entice Ghanaians, especially the teeming youth to venture into Agribusiness.

While congratulating the President-elect, Mr John Dramani Mahama on his unprecedented electoral victory, Mr Awal Adugwuala noted that “the renaming of the Agriculture Ministry, will attract the needed resources for the Ministry to invest in Agriculture in terms of irrigation, mechanization, storage, processing and marketing”.

He said the biggest success of the 24-Hour Economic policy of the NDC government, would be in agro-processing for value addition and the creation of jobs for the youth.

The President of PFAG called on the government to introduce subsidies and make them readily available to farmers as a key to reducing the cost of production.

Mr Awal Adugwuala observed that many developed countries had subsidized Agriculture and asked Ghana to take the issue of subsidies seriously, particularly for smallholder farmers.

He also urged the government to ensure tax exemption on Agricultural inputs to make them affordable to farmers to grow more food to feed the nation.