President John Dramani Mahama has praised the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Eric Opoku, describing him as one of the finest Agriculture Ministers in Ghana’s history, for his bold, reform-driven leadership of the sector.
The President made the remarks at Atukum in the Asunafo South District, where he launched a new national vegetable development project, followed by a groundbreaking ceremony at Bechem for a modern chicken and meat processing centre, all under the government’s renewed agricultural transformation agenda.
President Mahama said the vegetable development initiative forms a critical pillar of the national strategy to improve food security, cut import dependency, and empower smallholder and subsistence farmers across the regions.
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Mr Eric Opoku, who is also the MP for Asunafo South, has been leading a raft of interventions under the Feed Ghana Programme, launched in April this year to modernise agriculture, stabilise food prices, expand job creation, and supply raw materials for agro-industrial growth.
Under Feed Ghana, the Ministry has rolled out the YƐREDUA Vegetable Development Project, promoting greenhouse vegetable production, irrigated open-field farming and dedicated support for urban, peri-urban and rural producers.
The Ministry is also establishing nationwide vegetable nurseries to supply households and communities with quality seedlings — a move expected to stimulate home gardening, improve household nutrition and raise domestic production levels.
A major highlight of Mr Opoku’s tenure is the aggressive push to revitalise the poultry industry. Programmes such as Nkoko Nketenkete, a backyard poultry initiative targeting women and young people, and the Farm-to-Table poultry value chain are expanding both household and commercial production.
Thousands of households have already benefited from the distribution of birds, while large and medium-scale farmers continue to receive technical and logistical support to boost output and reduce Ghana’s heavy reliance on poultry imports.
To further strengthen the poultry feed value chain, the government is also establishing a state-of-the-art soya processing plant in the North, providing reliable markets for soybean farmers and feedstock for poultry producers.
The Feed Ghana Programme has expanded irrigation infrastructure nationwide, rehabilitated abandoned dams, and supported institutional farming across schools, security agencies and faith-based institutions. These efforts, President Mahama noted, are geared toward boosting the production of staples, vegetables and livestock, while reducing post-harvest losses.
At Bechem, the President cut sod for the construction of a chicken and meat processing centre, spearheaded by Mr Opoku as a cornerstone of the country’s poultry value chain and local meat processing drive.
The centre is expected to create jobs, reduce poultry imports and strengthen Ghana’s agro-industrial base. The new vegetable push and investments in poultry, irrigation and agro-processing signal a decisive shift toward long-term food self-sufficiency, import substitution, and rural economic transformation.
The current drive, led by Minister Eric Opoku and backed strongly by President Mahama, positions the agricultural sector as a competitive, diversified engine of national development.