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The overall Best Central Regional Farmer, Mr. Ebenezer Ebo Ayison, has called on teachers at the various levels of the educational ladder, to start including visits to farms in their excursion activities, to help generate an interest in the students for mechanized farming. He said such activities would help students interested in agriculture to venture into it after completion of school, to solve the unemployment problem facing the nation. In his acceptance speech, after receiving his award as Regional Best Farmer at Awutu Bawjiase last Friday, Ayison, 47, observed that the practice in schools where weeding was used as punishment, should be discouraged. He said when students visit farms, they would erase that notion, and see farming as a business that can enable them earn good incomes. The Central Regional Minister, Mrs. Ama Benyiwa Doe, said about 522.2 hectares of land was ploughed this year at Kwesi Twikwaa and Odumase in the Agona District, as well as Akuaku and New Winneba in the Central Region, and more was expected to be done next year, under the district mechanized Agriculture programme. She said tractors would be given the various districts to enhance agriculture, where the assemblies will pay for the items within a period of three years. She said the government would make sure that the bad roads are the rehabilitated, to ensure easy accessibility to remote areas, and electricity supply extended to villages, while more extension officers would be trained to complement the staff strength of the extension division. Adams Nuhu, Awutu Senya District Chief Executive (DCE), said the district was positioning itself for mechanized farming, and that already it was exporting pineapples abroad. He took a swipe at the Ghana Commercial Bank, Barclays Bank and National Investment Bank in his jurisdiction, for failing to contribute to the celebration of Farmers� Day when proposals were sent to them. He said although these are banks which benefit from the Assembly�s Common Fund, they never saw the need to support the farmers� Day celebration. The Member of Parliament (MP) for Awutu Senya, David Nana Larbi, thanked the organisers of the programme for hosting it in his constituency, and impressed upon his constituents to take the education of their wards seriously. The Central Regional Director of Agric, Mr. Justice Amoah, called on agric officers to work hard to justify the government�s investments in mechanized agriculture.