ADB presents GH¢1 million ultimate prize to National Best Farmer

The Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) PLC last Friday presented the ultimate prize money of GH¢1million to the 2022 National Best Farmer, Nana Yaw Sarpong Siriboe.

This is in fulfilment of its long-standing commitment to the annual National Farmers Day celebrations held on December 1 of every year.

Nana Siriboe, who emerged as the National Best Farmer at the 38th Edition of the National Farmers' Day Awards ceremony organised in December 2022 in Koforidua in the Eastern Region, is investing the prize money in the construction of the Siriboe Agritech Training Institute, a training centre to train the youth in agriculture especially in technology transfer, sustainable farming ideas and best practices in farming.

Testament

At a ceremony to present the prize money, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Bryan Acheampong, noted that honouring the country’s farmers since 1985 through the National Farmers Day celebration was a testament to its collective recognition of the significant role farmers played in national development.

“We have our farmers to thank for our sustenance through the food we eat, raw materials for industry, jobs along the agricultural value chain and substantial earnings from export annually.

“The recent adversities of COVID-19, Climate Change and the Russia-Ukraine War and their combined impact on the global economy, particularly hikes in food inflation, highlight the need to prioritise matters of food security and resilience,” he said.

Dr Acheampong said that also reinforced the importance for greater national investments in agriculture and a conscious effort to incentivise our farmers.

“In this regard, the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), the title sponsor of the National Farmers Day celebrations deserve special commendation for consistently sponsoring Farmers Day for decades and providing the ultimate prize to the National Best Farmers every year,” he said.

Investment

The Managing Director of the ADB, Alhaji Alhassan Yakubu-Tali, said the award would complement the personal investment of Nana Siriboe to bring his proposed institute into reality.

“We reckon the enormous benefit this institute would bring in terms of creating local sustainable employment that would go a long way to reduce the cancerous rural-urban drift,” he said, adding that the proposal was worth supporting.

As we have done in the past, the bank will provide Nana with a dedicated Relationship Manager to assist in ensuring the proper utilisation of the funds.

The ADB, he said, took great pride in being the headline sponsor of the National Best Farmers Day since 2001 and that its long-standing sponsorship of the Welcome Cocktail, the Farmers' Forum, and the Ultimate Prize formed part of the bank's unwavering commitment to encouraging the country’s gallant farmers and fishers to grow more, feed more and create more wealth for themselves and the nation.

In recent years, the MD said ADB had repositioned itself as the Bank of Choice when it came to agricultural lending and provision of other related support including advisory services. 

Commitment

For his part, Nana Siriboe thanked the bank and the government for their support and commitment to agriculture in the country.

“My primary aim for contesting for the National Farmers award was to have the enabling platform to use my good self as an example to motivate and mentor the Ghanaian youth especially those with tertiary education among whom unemployment is very high to consider agriculture as a profit-making venture,” he said.

He said since he was adjudged the National Best Framer, he had utilised every available platform to motivate and mentor over 3,000 youth, especially young women in some parts of the country into agriculture.

In a report published in 2014, he said the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the International Food for Agriculture Development (IFAD), identified the principal challenge to youth in agriculture as insufficient access to knowledge, information and education.

“It is in this regard that my office as the 2022 National Best Farmer under the auspices of Siriboe Farms Ltd has embarked on the establishment of a 600 capacity Agricultural Skills Development and Environmental Sustainability Centre which is 50 per cent complete to augment the effort of government and various stakeholders in providing the Ghanaian youth and women the opportunity to gain access to knowledge, information and education to make wealth through agriculture,” he said.

Sustainability

Nana Siriboe said to ensure continuity and sustainability of the youth mentorship roadshow and farmers’ capacity project which would be launched in a few weeks time, he had created the office of the National Best Farmer 2022 in Juaben in the Ashanti Region.

A dummy cheque for GH¢1million was later presented to Nana Siriboe.