The Minister for Food and Agriculture and Member of Parliament for Asunafo South Constituency in the Ahafo Region, Hon. Eric Opoku has slammed the practice of archaic farming methods being used in the country's agricultural sector in modern day farming, which turns to dent the progress of agriculture in Ghana.
According to the Agric Minister, Ghana's National Agricultural Target is at risk of being unattainable if the country continues to rely on old farming approaches.
Hon. Eric Opoku made this expression at the final policy workshop of the DIVAGRI (Ghana) project hosted at University of Cape Coast (UCC) on Monday, November 10, 2025.
In an address delivered on behalf of the Agric Minister by the Central Regional Agric Director, Dr. Peter Omega, the Minister commended the DIVAGRI project for its efforts in transforming Ghana's agricultural sector.
Emphasizing the need for modernization and innovation to achieve the country's agricultural goals, which perfectly aligns with the government's flagship Feed Ghana initiative which aims to enhance food security, create jobs, and strengthen the agricultural industrial base and value chain, having described the policy dissemination as an essential bridge between field research and national implementation.
The DIVAGRI project is an EU-Horizon 2020 project initiative which has its core tenets to comprise revenue diversification of smallholder farmers in relation to the use of circular and bio-based technologies and solutions across diverse agricultural value chains in five (5) partner countries in sub-Sahara Africa and other European countries with African countries comprising Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique.
The Ghana team in this regard, held a one-day policy workshop to present insights and feedback from the project with partners and related stakeholders, aimed at highlighting innovations and sustainable inclusive business models from bio-based solutions like prototyping and fabrication of biochar kiln to produce biochar and mushroom production using bio-based waste resources.
The workshop again highlighted other bio-based solutions like intercropping and desalination greenhouse technologies, development of biogas for household (domestic) and institutional use from farm waste together with the localization of SLECI irrigation as water saving technology among other related solutions.
Hon. Opoku in his address, observed to farmers that as the world is rapidly changing, agriculture must take similar fate and thus encouraged smallholder farmers to also leverage on technology since technology is no longer a privilege of large commercial farms only, but a lifeline to smallholder farmers as well.
Dr. Isaac Bryant, UCC Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Science and the Biogas Lead for the DIVAGRI project in an engagement with Sompa TV's Eric Annan, underscored the readiness of the academia in coming up with tailor-made research solutions to enhance Ghana's agric sector.
He appealed on government to do its bit to make the initiated bio-based solutions from the DIVAGRI programme live to become a reality by devising deliberate strategy to effect these technologies into actionable state policies, considering the positive impact it turns to have on the country's climate condition.
Dr. Francis Kumi of UCC's Department of Agricultural and Mechanical Engineering and the DIVAGRI Project Lead, urged government to commit enough attention and promotion on technological research and initiatives carried out by academia at various institutions, which sort to tackle specific agricultural issues in the country.
He again called for a dedicated funding allocation to feasible agricultural inventions by the state as showcased through the DIVAGRI project, which will go an extreme to offer immense support to Ghana's economy since agriculture serves as the backbone to the country's financial system.
Dr. Alexander Tetteh Kwasi Nuer, the Business Model Lead also stated that the final 3 technologies have gone through business model testing in all the technologies to make them business ready for uptake.
Sompaonline.com//Eric Annan