One fine afternoon in the early eighties in my family home in Labone, a cousin of mine and I engaged in a debate which tore the rest of the youth in the house into two.
The issue was “Is Fishing, Agriculture?” At that time fish farming was virtually unknown in Ghana and so I said “No, it is hunting.” My cousin and some of my siblings and relations around disagreed with me.
Using my two-year education in Latin, I explained to them that the word agriculture is an adaptation of the Latin, agricultūra, which is from ager (field) and cultūra (cultivation or growing). Going further, I reminded my cousin who is an agriculturist as I am that in plain English, agriculture is the art and science of cultivating the soil, growing crops and raising livestock.
With two experts on the subjectunder discussion, arguing at poles apart, we ended disagreeing to agree.
Today, my feature begins a two-part article on those in this time of our lives, contributed greatly to making Ghana have her chest above waters. The first part is on agriculture and the second part will be on the industrial revolution.
Today in Ghana, except if one is blind to facts and truths, the one who has lifted agriculture up is the former Minister of Food and Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto. I will also say that another aspect of food production, that is fisheries, is well taken care of by Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson, who I must say is the best fisheries minister since the Ministry of Fisheries and later the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquacultural Development became a full fletch ministry.
Hawa has been doing extremely well in that field and I must use this opportunity to congratulate her on the recent aquaculture farms she is putting up. With limited space but high productivity, these farms can be put up in smaller communities which are not even near a water body and yet there will be high yields. I believe that her ambition of increasing fish production by 136% is on course.
On this page, I am only going to talk about Dr. Afriyie Akoto, then the next will be on Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen and maybe, I will bring a Part Three on Hawa Koomson.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto is someone with the highest learning in the field of agriculture and he had successfully applied his knowledge and made it practical for Ghana to start making gains in agriculture food production.
Agriculture contributes about 54 % of Ghana’s GDP, and accounts for over 40 % of export earnings, while at the same time providing over 90 % of the food needs of the country.About 40% of the total workforce in Ghana are into agriculture food production. This implies that if right mechanisms are put in place, Ghana will have more that it can feed on and sell the surplus abroad, hence becoming a major world food basket.
These are what Dr. Akoto started doing, even as he received bad blood from people who only want to see failure in everything this government does.
With him, the accepted practice that agriculture is only restricted to producing and consuming, was changed to make it real business where the aim is not only to make cedis, dollars or pounds, etc., etc, but also to feed local industries which would normally import raw materials that could be produced here – a turnaround for Ghana.
One day, I was driving an expatriate visitor through Osudoku in the Shai-Osudoku district of Greater Accra. He said to me: “Daniel, look at all these riches laying waste.” I looked around and saw some mango trees scattered about the place, a few coconut trees here and there and cashew trees hiding in the bushes, perhaps feeling shy. And of course, oil palm trees competing with the elephant grass. I knew what he was talking about but I still asked, “what do no mean?”
He said, “Look, just give me at least one thousand hectares of land here and I will make the natives here very rich. You cannot imagine the wealth in mango, coconut, oil palm and cashew. This land will be very good for sun flower cultivation. Getting a vast land to produce these crops, I will contact Thatcher and the others to set up processing plants, to produce for export. Do you think the workers will know what poverty is?” I kept quiet and momentarily sank into deep thoughts.
While I was still thinking of how to get round this, because of some reasons which I will not like to disclose here, Dr. Afriyie Akoto came with Tree Crop Development Authority which could earn this country in my estimation, more than US$12 billion a year.
Let us look at oil palm alone. The Malaysians crossed the seas and come down south here to learn from us how to cultivate oil palm. Today, Malaysia is well ahead of Ghana and in among the top three world producers with the crop yielding almost US$2.4 billion last year for that country. Our situation is like that of a class one teacher who taught a child how to read and write and in quarter of a century later, this pupil becomes a professor lecturing in the university, while the teacher is still teaching infants how to read and write.
Malaysia is producing 18.8 million metric tonnes a year to place second in the world and Ghana is at No. 14 producing 300,000mt/year. With the going world market price of US$980.00/MT, while Malaysia will earn US$1.842 billion this year, Ghana will receive a humble US$294 million.
Dr. Akoto’s ambition to make Ghana, a country beyond aid, through the enhancement of the production of tree crops, is one of the best, if Ghana should become a second world nation.
Post harvest loses, is one area where food is produced but cannot get to the consumer. In some cases, even if the food gets to the consumer, it becomes exorbitant in price. The result is even though the food gets to the market, the prices quoted will result in low patronage and in the end the food will go waste.
I was in Ejura last May and chanced upon a young girl selling salted tilapia (koobi). She had piled them in groups of five and the size of each salted fish was larger than the size of grilled tilapia been sold in Accra, at least GH¢75.00 apiece. All five in Ejura went for GH¢100.00, and this is at the retail market. So, how much will it be sold for when one goes to those who sell the salted tilapia in sacks?
At the time when Ghanaians were to enjoy the benefits from Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), food brought down from producing area was priced at least twenty times the farm gate price. The current agriculture minister, Hon Dr. Bryan Acheampong, was shocked when he was told a box of tomatoes at farm gate cost GH¢400.00, while in Accra four pieces of small sized tomatoes is going for GH¢5.00, so how much would a box of tomatoes go for in Accra?
Faced with this problem, Dr. Akoto organised the conveyance of food stuffs from the production areas to the major consumer destinations, the cities and towns. With the price of food stuff drastically reduced, enemies of progress got to work and challenged the rational of the ministry transporting food down to the cities.
Maybe, if Dr. Akoto had spent more time at MOFA, he would have set up market centers in Accra and other cities where under the organization of his ministry, food stuffs will be brought down and sold cheaply for all.
Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has set up an innovation to cut down on prices of food stuffs and I only pray that this is well modified and becomes one of the departments in the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
His flagship PFJ Initiative has recorded successes. The maize production was 3.6million MT in 2022, from 1.7 million MT in 2016; rice was up at 1.2 million MT from 688,000 MT over the same period.
Hon. Dr. Akoto’s PFJ is going to give respect to food producers, if it is made to become a process and fully operational, no matter which government is in power.
In the Western countries, farmers are among the most respected. During my studies abroad in poultry science and management, I saw how beautiful it is to be a farmer.
A typical farmer will have say at least a five hundred acres of land for cultivation of food stuffs and production of animal husbandry. On the farm will be his house and living quarters for workers. There will be the silos and of course poultry houses and barns for cows and sheep. And there will be a mechanical workshop.
Whenever the farmer needs something, all he has to do is to place a call to companies engaged in that product and within a twinkle of an eye, services will be provided. He needs some inputs, he needs some weedicides and pesticides, and he needs his birds and animals to be vaccinated, his wish will be the command of the companies who deal in any of the above.
Harvest time is no problem for him, because, and again, after placing a phone call companies will come and harvest and issue him with a cheque to cover full cost of the produce.
This is where Dr. Akoto’s PFJ is going to and soon, farming and food production in general will be so attractive and respected. Hopefully this will make most of the youth to go into food production, instead of social vices. Galamsey will die a natural death and our water bodies and arable lands will be protected, because the youth will find a better way of making money. Thanks to PFJ.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto is one of the patriotic Ghanaians who have desired to heal our economy and make it strong. Could it be a surprise as to how come with economic challenges facing this country, Ghana started registering trade surpluses from 2020 to date? For the twenty-seven years into this republic, Ghana recorded trade deficits until 2020 and this has been so to this date. Surely, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto’s PFJ and other agriculture policies have helped Ghana to achieve this feat.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
