Last week at the 60th Anniversary celebration of the Mensah Sarbah Hall, in the University of Ghana, Legon, the former Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, proposed new agriculture models to tackle food security in the country.
Indeed, the proposal comes at a time Ghana is ranked among countries with high food prices in the sub-Saharan Region by the World Bank. The World Bank report puts Ghana ahead of Senegal, Congo, Nigeria and conflict-ridden Burkina Faso and Mali.
Despite being an agric-based economy, Ghana’s performance in food production over the years has not been encouraging due to various factors, including poor land management, high cost of agric inputs, obsolete farming methods, lack of funds and investment, poor road networks and marketing, which lead to high post-harvest losses.
Ghana has come a long way since independence with various agric policies to make it resilient and food secure. We can talk about recent programmes like Planting for Food and Jobs, Youth in Agriculture, Rearing for Food and Jobs, One-District-One-Dam, rehabilitation of irrigation systems and abandoned silos across the country.
However, the former Agric Minister’s new modules to combat food insecurity encompass strengthening government structures, supply-chain-logistics, market access, technology, research and human development.
The modules were designed to be operative under an Agriculture Management Team (AMT), which membership would be drawn from related ministries like Food and Agriculture, Finance, Trade and Industry, Lands and Natural Resources, Transport, Local Government and Rural Development, as well as Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation.
Whilst Dr. Afriyie Akoto’s proposal is laudable, The Chronicle is interested in knowing the impact of the previous flagship programmes before rolling out the new modules that he has proposed.
The Chronicle is appalled with the knee-jerk approach to agriculture development by various governments that do not have long-term solutions. Food security should be taken seriously, because it is intrinsically linked to the health, education, peace and stability of any nation.
When food prices continue to soar, as we are experiencing, it could mean falling into food insecurity and a state of unreliable access to affordable food.
Reducing poverty must also focus on preventing people from being exposed to food inflation. Spending large parts of personal incomes on food does not only make one vulnerable to high food prices, but become exposed to other vices of economic hardship.
The Chronicle strongly believes that Ghana has what it takes to be food secured and resilient if we put our house in order by producing effective policies and programmes that would boost the agric sector in the face of an ever-increasing population.
We, therefore, need the government to give an account on the performance of the various agric policies and programmes as we want to roll out new modules.
