In June, 2019, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched the initiative in Wa, in the Upper West Region, in a bid to develop a competitive and more efficient livestock industry, that would increase domestic production, reduce importation of livestock products, contribute to employment creation and improve livelihoods of livestock value chain actors.

The five-year intervention (2019-2023) would focus on breed improvement, increased productivity, infrastructure development, feed production as well as application of e-agriculture in livestock production.

Mr Francis Ennor, the Regional Director of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), who disclosed this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga, mentioned the Kassena-Nankana Municipal, Kassena-Nankana West, Bongo, Bawku West and Nabdam District Assemblies as the beneficiaries this year, out of the 15 MDAs in the region.

He said the beneficiary MDAs were selected based on their track records of repaying for agriculture facilities and indicated that selected farmers in those Districts would be given sheep, goats and guinea fowls to rear.

Mr Ennor entreated the youth and women groups in the region to avail themselves of the opportunity and indicated that the project would give enough room to smallholder women farmers to benefit since they were noted to have interest in livestock rearing.

The Regional Director further disclosed that about 100, 000 smallholder farmers in the region were benefiting from the Planting For Food and Jobs (PFJs) intervention this year, almost double of last year’s target.

Mr Ennor said the PFJs intervention last year exceeded its regional targets of the 50,000 to 55,000 farmers and noted that the interventions contributed significantly to increased food production in maize, millet, beans, and groundnuts among others.

The Regional Director stated that the beneficiaries, who were drawn from communities across the 15 Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) in the region had already started benefiting from the subsidized farm inputs including fertilizers and improved seeds under the PFJs.