Mr William Dzamefe, Volta Regional Director of Agriculture, says the region has huge potential for and called on investors to consider the region for investment.
He said the region prided itself on three main value chains where it had a lot of potential and advantages for agriculture and these included rice, vegetables and cassava production.
Mr Dzamefe, speaking to Ghana News Agency in Ho, ahead of the 39th National Farmer’s Day Celebration, noted that the region was currently leading in rice production in the country.
The Director said the region currently produced 23 per cent of the total rice production and the rice from the region was of high quality.
Mr Dzamefe mentioned cassava as another promising crop, which he said held lot of potential for the region and could be produced in large quantities for industrial use.
The region, he said, also had potential and advantage in production of both exotic and local vegetables including carrots, lettuce, shallot, tomatoes and onion, okro and pepper.
Anloga, Ketu South and Ketu North Districts are some areas, he said, these vegetables were produced in large quantities, and they were highly valued and clean vegetables.
Mr Dzamefe attributed the quality of the vegetables to the source of water used to produce them, which was underground water, very pure without any pathogen.
He said the proximity of the enclaves where these vegetables were produced to Togo also gave the region much advantage for easy export of the products.
He said the region intended to scale up production and go into commercial, disclosing that some investors had even started coming into the region to venture into cassava production.
Mr Dzamefe said one critical thing when it comes to scaling up the production had to do with availability of land, and the land tenure system in the region was not the best as there were lots of complexities.
He said the land tenure system was a major hindrance to the scaling up of agriculture activities and appealed to various stakeholders to help address the situation.
The Director, however, noted that if the assemblies could consciously in collaboration with landowners demarcated lands within their jurisdictions for agriculture activities it would make land available for Investors.
He said the Ministry was comfortable working with Farmer Based Organisations, noting that this made it easier for them to meet the farmers with strategies and offer necessary support to them.
Mr Dzamefe advised farmers in the region to form groups as this would help the Ministry to easily address their challenges and engage them in any interventions.
By Caleb Kuleke, GNA