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The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has inaugurated a nine-member of Board of Directors for the Grains and Legumes Development Board (GLDB).
The inauguration was held in Accra, Tuesday, March 22, 2022, at the Ministry’s conference hall.
The newly inaugurated board appointed by President Nana Akufo-Addo is chaired by Alexander Akwasi Acquah, who is also the Member of Parliament for Akyem Oda Constituency in the Eastern Region.
It includes; Seth Osei-Akoto (Directorate of Crop Services), Peter Oteng Darko (Farmers Representative), Samuel Danquah Arkhurst (Ministry of Finance) and William Oppong Bio (Business).
The rest are; Samuel Boadu (Ag Executive Director), Monica Boakye-Kutin (Consumer), Robert Agyeibi Asuboah (Ex GLDB Executive Director) and Francis Kwasi Adzalo, a representative of the Seed Growers Association.
The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto who sworn-in the newly constituted board at a short ceremony wished them well in their term of office.
In his acceptance speech, Chairman of the inaugurated Grains and Legumes Development Board, Alexander Akwasi Acquah, expressed gratitude to President Akufo-Addo for the trust repose in them and promised work tirelessly to lift the image of agriculture in the country.
“Agriculture is the backbone of Ghana’s economy and employing about 60% of the workforce, my team will work assiduously to come out with policies and programmes that will augment the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s agenda to promote agriculture,” he said.
He added: “This will ensure sustainable food production and food security in the country. Seed, which is the basic unit of plant propagation and very critical to crop production, will be made available to farmers at all times in order to increase their household incomes and reduce poverty.”
He pledged the Board’s readiness to support the government flagship programme ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ with the provision of quality foundation seeds of the major staple crops to farmers and the commodity value chain development as envisioned by the sector Minister.
Mr Acquah pledged the board will ensure that the “importation of seeds from other countries, as happened in the previous years, will be a thing of the past.”
The GLDB was established by the MoFA in September 2021, to among others, produce and distribute good quality foundation seeds of cereals, legumes, and vegetable seeds as well as vegetative propagated planting materials of cassava, plantain, yam and citrus seedlings.
