Akufo-Addo promises 210,000 jobs from PFJ

President Akufo-Addo has assured that the second phase of his flagship Planting for Food and Jobs, PFJ, will create at least 210,000 jobs annually. The president said farm-related jobs will be created with over a million farmers expected to be enrolled.

According to President Akufo-Addo, “The impact of the Programme is expected to be in the area of job creation, with some 1.2 million farmers to be enrolled in the first year. In the next four (4) years, the Programme is destined to record an annual average of two hundred and ten thousand (210,000) new farm-related jobs.

He said, the 210,000 jobs “will exclude other jobs along the agricultural value chains estimated at an annual average of four hundred and twenty thousand over the same period”.

President Akufo-Addo was addressing a gathering at the launch of the second phase of the programme in Tamale.

“The second phase, by design, takes a holistic view and places greater emphasis on value chain approaches by focusing on strengthening linkages between actors along eleven selected agricultural commodity value chains broadly categorised into grains, roots and tuber, vegetables and poultry.”

He said the second phase will shift from direct subsidy to “smart agricultural financial support” and improved service delivery.

“Phase two of the programme also seeks to improve service delivery to maximise impact, substitutes direct input subsidy with smart agricultural financial support in the form of comprehensive input credit, with provision for in-kind payment,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo launched Planting for Food and Jobs in 2017

Planting for Food and Jobs is a flagship agricultural Campaign of the Government, with five (5) implementation modules. The first module PFJ (Crops) aims to promote food security and immediate availability of selected food crops on the market and also provide jobs. This module was officially launched by H. E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo at Goaso on April 19, 2017, in the then Brong Ahafo Region.

The programme has five modules; Food Crops (PFJ), Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD), Greenhouse Technology Villages (3 Villages), Rearing for Food and Jobs ( RFJ) and Agricultural Mechanization Services (AMSECs).