Consider producing fertilers locally

June 11, 2009
Page 21

THE Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, has urged companies that import fertilisers to consider producing fertilisers locally.
That, he said, would encourage and boost the local production of the chemicals.
According to him, there was a huge demand for fertilisers locally by institutions and cited the ministry which had imported 80,000 metric tonnes of fertilisers for small-scale farmers engaged in food crop production.
Mr Ahwoi gave the advice when the Egyptian Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Seif Allah Nossier, presented a cheque for GH¢23,898, on behalf of the Egyptian government, to the Agriculture Ministry.
The support, made available through the Egyptian Fund for Technical Co-operation, will be used to purchase 12 tonnes of NPK compound fertiliser and 22.8 tonnes of sulphate of ammonia.
The minister thanked the Egyptian government for the support and said the ministry intended to give the fertilisers to a community so that the impact could be monitored and verified.
Mr Ahwoi expressed the hope that the distribution of fertilisers would go a long way to improve farming activities and the agricultural sector at large.
For his part, Mr Nossier described the presentation of the money as a symbolic gesture, saying relations between Ghana and Egypt dated back to the days of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Gamel Abdel Nasser.
He said the Egyptian Fund for Technical Co-operation, which was under his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was established in 1982 by Dr Boutrous Boutros-Ghali to provide support for other African countries.
He said the presentation of the money followed a request by the immediate past Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Ernest Debrah, to the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Fund for Technical Co-operation, Ms Nevein Ashmawy, in July last year.
Mr Mehdi Saint-Andre, the Sales and Marketing Manager of Yara Ghana Limited, supplier of the fertilisers, promised that the chemicals would be delivered yesterday, June 10, 2009.