Ghana's President has opened the Akumadan Greenhouse Capacity Building and Commercial Centre in the Ashanti Region - dubbed the Greenhouse Village - which is expected to greatly boost the West African country's vegetable sector.

Speaking at the commissioning ceremony on Jan. 29, Nana Akufo-Addorecounted that similar facilities have been established at Dwahenya in the Greater Accra Region and Bawjiase in the Central Region, in furtherance of the vision to revamp and modernize agriculture.

These facilities, he said, come under the Greenhouse module of the Planting For Food and Jobs (PFJ) program, one of the five priorities of the government.

An agreement was reached in 2015 with an Israeli company to help restructure the vegetable sector, with view to maximizing yields.

The concept of Greenhouse Villages was wholly embraced because of its potential benefits to actors along the vegetable value chain and the economy as a whole.

“Under the agreement, government was to construct three Greenhouse Villages with the option of adding two after completion,” the President explained.

The contract for the construction of the Greenhouse Training Centres was awarded at the cost of US$19.7m.

The scope of work for this project include the construction of training centers, greenhouse tunnels complete with automated drip irrigation facility, packhouses, cold storage facilities, a maintenance yard, classrooms and dormitory accommodation for visiting resource persons. These are all laid out on five-hectare plots.