Mr Akwasi Asamoah, the 2011 National Best Plantain Farmer, has commended Newmont Ghana for complementing Government’s efforts towards the promotion of agriculture in the country.
He said he had chalked successes through the cultivation of cocoa, plantain cassava through the assistance of the mining company.
Speaking in an interview on Friday, he said, before his association with Newmont Ghana he took farming as a hobby but with the support of the company he now runs his farm as a full commercial entity.
Mr. Asamoah specifically cited the Agricultural Improvement and Land Access Programmme (AILAP), a post-resettlement mitigation programmme meant to assist farmers directly impacted by the development of the Ahafo Mine, to re-establish their agricultural livelihoods as one programme that had transformed his life.
He said the activities earmarked under the AILAP programme was beneficial to the over 5,000 farmers currently working with the programme.
The AILAP programme, he said, assisted the farmers’ right from the acquisition of land, planting to harvesting.
Farmers on the AILAP programmme have been compensated for lands, which fall within Newmont’s mine take area.
The programme was first implemented in 2006 to assist farmers, who had already been paid their due compensation to gain access to alternative farm lands and receive adequate training for abundant and higher quality yields.
Newmont established AILAP to increase crop production, promote crop diversity, technology adoption, market access, which existed prior to the start of the Ahafo Mine operations through facilitating access to land, provision of free farm inputs, farmer motivation and improved extension services.
“With the help of the AILAP programme my target is to become the overall best national farmer in two years,” Mr Asamoah.
He urged the government to invest part of revenue generated from non-renewable natural resources into sectors such as agriculture to boost the economy.
“We should invest part of the revenues from the non-renewable resources in the renewable components of industry, of agriculture, of tourism so that we better empower the economy in the event that mining industry cannot contribute to development anymore,” he said.
He said the AILAP programme showed the importance Newmont attached to the agricultural sector in the country and pledged his commitment to continue to count on the mining giant for support and direction.
Mr. Asamoah urged the youth to venture into farming as their contribution towards national development.
Source: GNA
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