Government Statistician, Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu, has called for urgent investment in agriculture infrastructure to sustain the recent decline in food inflation, which has helped push the country’s overall inflation rate into single digits for the first time in four years.
His comments come after data from the Ghana Statistical Service showed inflation dropped to 9.4% in September, down from 11.5% in August.
The decline was largely driven by easing food prices, with food inflation falling to 11%, compared to 14.8% the previous month.
In an interaction with the media, Dr. Iddrisu highlighted the need to strengthen irrigation systems, improve food storage, and enhance transport networks to maintain stable food prices and reduce post-harvest losses.
“To lock in the progress, we have seen in food inflation, especially for staples like yam, cassava, rice, and vegetables, we must invest in irrigation to enable year-round farming and reduce dependence on rainfall,” he said.
He also emphasised the need to tackle long-standing challenges in food storage. “We need to address cold chain and dry storage systems to reduce post-harvest losses for perishables like tomatoes, onions, peppers, okro, and garden eggs,” Dr. Iddrisu added.
Reliable transport infrastructure, he said, is also essential to ensure smooth supply and distribution of food across the country.
“What we need to also do is to ensure that we invest in reliable transport networks,” he stressed
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