Ghana’s farm lands are expected to be free of all pests by 2018 for the full implementation of the “Planting for Food and Jobs” initiative, the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has said.

According to him, the eradication of all pests is crucial for the project which is expected to provide raw materials for factories that will be established.

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Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto said the country is seeking international consultation on how best to eradicate pests that attack farmlands.

“We have been getting experts from America where diseases like army worms come from and they are advising the government on what we have to go through to ensure that we eliminate this and other outbreaks, we are also going to call a conference in Abuja and have a coordinated international effort, as I speak to you people have come from the Food and Agricultural Association of Rome to come and advise us,” he said.

Elaborating further on what government is doing internally to curb the outbreak of pests, Mr. Afriyie Akoto said, “We have now formed a national tax force and as I speak to you, we are testing the whole country to do on the spot assessment. In the mean time, we have distributed seven different types of chemicals for spraying so in terms of the infustructure and the distribution of chemicals we are quite happy”.

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Mr. Afriyie Akoto stated that government is happy with the moves it has taken so far to control pests and is hopeful of eradication of all pests by 2018.

“The spraying is going on and we think that we have contained the situation. The task really is to make sure that we don’t have any army worms at all next year,” he stressed.