Ghana’s government will spend 5 million cedis ($3.5 million) to revive cotton production this year, Vice President John Mahama was cited as saying by the Ghana News Agency.

Mahama, who announced the initiative on June 26, said the project is aimed at producing 10,000 metric tons of cotton annually, the news agency reported on the same day. Ghana will spend 3.5 million cedis on support for the cotton industry and 1.5 million cedis in subsidies to farmers, he said.

Ghanaian cotton output begin dwindling in the 1980s after a boom in the previous two decades, due to high costs and soil infertility, the news service cited Mahama as saying. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s monthly cotton report showed Ghana’s production at zero.