Agriculture: a key sector.

President John Atta Mills has stated that his government will make agriculture the fulcrum of its economic policy. He said the country's continuous over-dependence on outside support and intervention in the area of food aid created a subservient culture which affected the national mentality. The country's ability to feed itself would, therefore, constitute a defining moment in its quest to build a self-reliant economy.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

As a result, in this year's budget the government gave the assurance that there would be emphasis on agricultural development as a means to developing the whole country, and recognising the agricultural sector as one of the priority areas of 2009. "Agriculture will be the main driver of growth and will receive serious attention especially in agriculture financing and the promotion of public-private partnership," the budget highlighted.

Agriculture is indeed the main driving force behind Ghana's economy, accounting for approximately 42% of the country's GDP and employing 54% of its workforce. In recent years, the development of the non-traditional agricultural sector has been encouraged in order to diversify the country's export base and there has been a general increase in the use of Ghana's arable land for cash crop production. Irrigation schemes consequently increased and agricultural inputs became more readily available, mainly as a result of private producers importing these from abroad, although local production of inputs also exists.

Ghana's primary cash crops include cocoa beans, palm oil, pineapples, cotton and tomatoes.

Cocoa. Cocoa is the 'black gold of Ghana'. Beyond being a major foreign exchange earner and a key source for financing capital projects, cocoa serves as a raw material for numerous consumer products and has made its way even into the pharmaceutical industry. About 1.2 million hectares are currently utilised for cocoa production. Ghana processes between 18% and 22% of its output into liquor, paste, and butter for export markets, while all other cocoa is exported in its raw state.