Citi FM and Citi TV have secured land for the organisations’ agribusiness initiative, which will see the cultivation of some selected crops to encourage farming.
The 50-acre land for farming; is located in the Akuapem North District in the Eastern region of Ghana.
The land was secured with the support from the Municipal Chief Executive of Akuapem North, Dennis Aboagye.
For a start, the organization will be cultivating maize while other crops will be added subsequently.
The project is in partnership with Glofert Fertilizer Company.
Following the stations’ “Operation Feed Yourself” campaign in November 2019, the management of Citi Fm and Citi TV announced plans of starting an initiative which will see the cultivation of some selected crops to encourage farming.
Among other things, ‘Operation Feed Yourself’ seeks to encourage people to use agriculture and agribusiness as a supplementary revenue source in the short term and to get as many people as possible to go into full-time farming in the medium to long term.
The campaign also seeks to get a lot more people into food production and processing.
The Managing Director of Citi 97.3 FM, Samuel Attah-Mensah, speaking on the ‘Operation Feed Yourself’ initiative at the time said, “The ‘Operation Feed Yourself’ is “borrowed from the Kutu Acheampong era” to “drive people to re-ignite interest in agriculture. We are talking about people who are not farmers, middle-income earners, tertiary students and people who are in the urban areas to look at farming and agribusiness as another means to generate revenue, compliment the revenues and basically to feed themselves.”
Citi TV in November 2019 also embarked on another agric related campaign, which was an advocacy for the consumption of local rice.
The campaign was spearheaded by the Chief Executive Officer of Citi FM/Citi TV, Samuel Attah-Mensah.
Mr. Samuel Attah-Mensah, who declared himself a campaigner for the consumption of locally-produced rice in the country, was also hopeful the move will help reduce government’s expenditure on rice imports by at least 50% by 2021.
The drive for local rice consumption was premised on the fact that Ghana spends over GHS 1.1 billion annually on importation of rice.
Ghana’s import regime, according to data available has a negative impact on Ghana’s currency the cedi and many sectors including agriculture.
Another campaign embarked on by Citi FM and Citi TV to promote locally produced goods was the Christmas Made in Ghana food fair in December 2019.
The fair was to support Citi FM and Citi TV’s drive to support distributors and producers of Made In Ghana products.
It also fell under the Operation Feed Yourself campaign that seeks to encourage growth and investment in the agribusiness space.
Source: citinewsroom.com
