About 915 farmers have benefited from the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme in the Okere district as of September 2019, with 4,500 farmers benefitting from extension services.
Mr. Daniel Kenneth, Okere District Chief Executive, who disclosed this at a media briefing on the implementation of government’s flagship programmes in the district, indicated that in 2018, 355 farmers cultivated 3,000 hectares of maize, tomato, pepper and cabbage under the PFJ.
This year, he said, 1,725 kilograms of subsidized maize seeds had been supplied to 145 farmers already and a total of 1,843 bags of NPK fertilizers and 910 bags of Urea fertilizers at subsidized prices had been supplied to the farmers to improve crop production and yield.
In addition to the PFJ, the DCE said 1,000 mango seedlings had been given to 155 farmers free of charge for commercial cultivation, under the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) ptogramme.
On Education, schools under the school feeding programme had increased from 11 in 2017 to 34, benefiting over 6,825 pupils, whiles scholarship bursaries for tertiary students had been granted to 33 students, amounting to GH60, 000 under the decentralized National Scholarship Secretariat.
Mr. Kenneth said the Free SHS programme was on course, adding that, the assembly had provided infrastructure and logistics to all three High Schools, including a private Technical Vocational School in the area.
On Sanitation, the district had instituted a project to distribute one million waste bins to households in the seven major towns of the district, so far about 500 bins had been distributed on a pilot basis at Abiriw and Adukrom, with door to door collection.
He said another milestone achieved in the area of sanitation was the decommissioning and excavation of 80-year old refuse piled at Adukrom, to make way for a football park and urged the citizens to accept the free bins and endeavor to pay a small fee to improve sanitation in the area.
Adding that the assembly is building an ultra-modern market at Asenema and work is ongoing on major roads in the area to enhance transportation of goods and services.
Therefore called on chiefs and the people of Okere to support government flagship policies for the betterment of the country and assured to create a job to reduce the rate of unemployment in the area.
Austin Ofori Addo/ritefmonline.org
