“Planting For Food And Jobs” Campaign May Not Be A Sustainable Model Unless…

It is no wonder that the plan of the incumbent government to introduce a campaign of “Planting for food and jobs” has not received the same initial enthusiasm and broad acceptance as we did with the “Operation Feed Yourself (OFY) of the 1970s. This is quite uncharacteristic of the new government which has received comprehensive victory and support in the last couple of months. We should agree with each other and accept the fact that if the OFY were a 40 year development plan, it would have outlived its purpose and Ghanaians would have craved for new ideas to resolve their peculiar need for food security, jobs and better lives for majority of the citizenry.

Times have changed, business models have evolved and the needs and demands of our society for our food system (not just agriculture) have changed and we should aim to understand these changes and reflect on solutions that are politically enabling, economically viable, and, socially and environmentally responsible. We should also try to clearly define responsibilities in ways that enables our government to channel its efforts at providing enabling environment and targeted support and incentives; but allowing the private sector, including our smallholder farmers, to thrive and to be at the forefront of solving the food needs of our country. It is my hope and the expectation of many compatriots, that the Minister of Agriculture will rethink the current strategies, pillars and approaches to be able to achieve the level of participation expected of the Ghanaian people.

Is the Campaign Innovative and Transformative?

The assurance of the President that the campaign “…will transform agriculture through the provision of seeds, supply of fertilizers, provision of dedicated extension services, a marketing strategy and the use of e-agriculture,” needs a sober reflection. The whole campaign has sounded business as usual since it was announced at the New Year School and so I tried to figure out how innovative and transformative that was in our agricultural sector. A look at the website of the Ministry of Agriculture revealed its vision to “modernize agriculture culminating in a structurally transformed economy and evident in food security, employment opportunities and reduced poverty.” The mission of MOFA “is to promote sustainable agriculture and thriving agribusiness through research and technology development, effective extension and other support services to farmers, processors and traders for improved livelihood”. The animal husbandry division sums it all in its strategy “to develop, promote and sustain …production for food security, employment creation and income generation through research, effective technical support, extension services, agro-business and industry, whilst ensuring that gender and environmental issues are adequately addressed.” So after all these years, why has the Ministry not been able to achieve food security, jobs and higher incomes for farmers? What innovations would the “planting for food and jobs” bring to enable the Ministry achieve its vision and mission to transform agriculture and our food system?

Why a “Pilot Phase”?
The President has said that “we aim to popularize farming by encouraging many people to take it up as a full or part-time activity.” It is true that our farmers have been left on their own but if there is a campaign to transform agriculture, why have we decided to target only 200,000 farmers, and in a “pilot phase”? What do we need to do to be able to reach a significant number of farmers to make the campaign popular and transformative? What level of innovations and new technologies are associated with the campaign that requires us to conduct pilot testing? Wikipedia defines a pilot project as a small scale preliminary study conducted in order to evaluate feasibility, time, cost, adverse events, and effect size in an attempt to predict an appropriate sample size and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale project. Like the OFY, why is it not feasible to involve majority of the farmers in this campaign? By calling it a pilot and targeting some 200,000 farmers with unknown criteria, we should be careful not to serve to encourage corporate land grabs and undermine the smallholder and women farmers who produce 80% of the food consumed in our country today.

Living in Changing Times
The Honorable Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, must have been one of the enthusiastic youth who actively participated to achieve success during the OFY campaign. We should be proud of his credentials and appreciate all his investments in agriculture in the Manso Nkwanta in Ashanti and Ghana at large. Unfortunately, majority of Ghanaians only read about the OFY in history books and our lives are only guided, not determined by the events of the 1970s.

In the 1970s, Ghana’s population was below 9 million. Ghana had abundance of land which defined and informed some of the strategies of the five year development plan (1975-1980) immediately following the successful OFY campaign. In those days, the plan focused on establishing large-scale commercial farms with foreign firms and governments under joint-venture agreements; establishment of more settlement farms, state farms, community farms and the provision of more irrigation facilities and the use of state production agencies, i.e. the State Farms Corporation, The Ghana Community Farms, the Grains Development Board, the Best Fibres Development Board and the Cotton Development Board as the vehicle for the production of industrial raw materials and export crops.

Unfortunately, the state farms and community farm models have failed in our country. Access to land is a key challenge that prevents the youth and women from venturing into agriculture. The challenging land issues we face today are not exactly the same as we did in the 1970. Since 2000, Ghana’s forest cover has almost halved and relevant assessments indicate that rates may have been accelerating in the Brong Ahafo and Western Regions. It is widely known that Ghana’s deforestation rate is about 2% per year, representing a loss of 65,000 ha of closed forest per year. It is known that agricultural expansion – led by the production of cocoa, but also including cereals, root and tubers, plantain, oil palm, and rubber – accounts for about half of deforestation and degradation. Community members have a role to play but quite unfortunately, they continue to be both actors in, and victims of forest decline. If we must implement “planting for food and jobs”, we must consider where the plantings would be done and whether we have sufficient environmental, socio-economic and political safeguards in place to avoid further deforestation and degradation. Civil society wants the Minister of Agriculture to make categorical statements and commitment to halt deforestation and degradation as well as respect the buffer zones of our water bodies. Otherwise, the call of the President in his first state of the nation’s address about “care of the environment” will be meaningless.

The law of demand and supply
If there is any market where the laws of demand and supply determine prices and net profit of the key stakeholders, our food systems would be one of them. The law of supply and demand has been applied to explain the interaction between the supply of a resource and the demand for that resource. For many of our foods, it has defined the effect the availability of food products and the desire those products have on price. On our food market, a low supply and a high demand increases prices, and in contrast, the greater the supply and the lower the demand, the lower the price tends to fall. Overall, the gap between farmers’ average yields and their potential yields in Ghana remains unacceptably large across the sector, and the pressure on forest reserves from smallholders’ expansion continues and this must be halted. However, if we also aim to implement a program that will increase yield, we ought to find the infrastructure and incentives to maintain a market equilibrium price. Hon. Minister, boosting yields does not boost incomes. It has already been established that there is insufficient evidence that increased productivity significantly boosts net farm income. The 2015 Cocoa Barometer indicated that the chocolate industry drive for sustainable cocoa was fixated on productivity, largely neglecting extreme poverty in the sector. This stands true today as significant success in productivity achievement in the cocoa sector has resulted in price falls.

Does being Productive Always Pay: Lessons from recent Cocoa Yields and Falling Prices?

We need to improve on productivity but we need to do so in a way that makes farming profitable and responsible. We have observed an illustration in the cocoa sector that we need to consider if we would be successful with our campaign in the food system. There is a current fall in stock price of cocoa as a result of higher production in West Africa and Latin America. This presents a point to reflect if being productive always pays and what factors are also required to ensure that higher productivity doesn’t make the farmer worse off with price falls. The world cocoa prices plummeted to their lowest levels in more than 17 years, after a survey by the International Cocoa Organization revealed heavier than expected stocks. At US$2,240/ton, cocoa in New York was at its lowest price in three and a half years. Commerzbank Research says more and more observers are expecting to see over supply in the 2016/17 crop year. Traders are expecting a sizable surplus of global production, thanks to heavy output from top-ranked grower Cote d’Ivoire. The message is quite clear; if there are plans to “buy all surplus produce from farmers” and store them in rehabilitated cocoa warehouses in the hinterlands, should we not pilot and implement it first in the cocoa sector? The cocoa sector has been working to achieve higher yields but this worst cocoa price rout in more than 17 years is already raising concern that farmers in South America may quit growing cocoa, and shift to alternative crops such as cocaine, industry groups has hinted.

Meanwhile, profits are soaring at the other end of the value chain. As expected, the cocoa industry players are posting better and expected profits as a result of the fall in price of the commodity. The Reuters reports that the Hershey’s Company, posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by low cocoa prices and cost cuts, and the company forecast 2017 adjusted earnings ahead of estimates. According to the report, the company expects 2017 adjusted earnings of $4.72-$4.81 per share, beating analysts' average estimate of $4.64, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Pennsylvania-based Hershey’s, benefited as the price of cocoa fell about 22 percent to a near four-year low in the quarter…. [1] ” With this imbalance in the commodity value chain, a call to produce and increase yields stand to be questioned by producers. Wouldn’t helping the Ghanaian youth and entrepreneurs to invest in downstream value addition products and services, rather than in food production be a better business model to attract the youth?

Is our Campaign Strategy S-M-A-R-T and Inclusive?

A lot of people in their 50s like very much that agriculture has found a new slogan that could garner support and replicate the OFY of the 1970s. I decided to take a dive to conduct some reality check on our plans and intentions. How S-M-A-R-T is our campaign and how inclusive is it of our youth and women farmers? What level of consultation has gone on and how broad has the Minister engaged with the key stakeholders to formulate the campaign messages?

Having identified five key growing areas for maize for example, the five year development plan of the 1970s had “The main objective of the programme will be to increase productivity in these areas by raising yields per acre from 900 lb. per acre to 1,100 lb. per acre by 1980.” Some figures have been thrown in the air but as we plan it is important to ask about our specific measurable targets and timelines for each of our commodity crops under the “planting for food and jobs” campaign. Against which key performance indicators would we monitor progress and measure impacts of our campaign? It is important to also stress that the plan in the 1970s was quite inclusive as it anticipated a greater proportion of the output to come from the small farmer sector organized into crop associations, nnoboa groups and co-operatives. In addition, it anticipated quite a number of joint-venture projects with local and foreign firms as part of the deal. Our goals should be SMART - specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time-based. To quote renowned American philosopher and writer Elbert Hubbard: “Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage, but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.” Perhaps the Monday, February 20, 2017, edition of “the Finder” provided a headline for analysis: “2017: Rice Production to Go Up by 49%”. At the budget presentation in Parliament on Thursday, March 2, 2017, the Minister of Finance also spelt out that “…this initiative is expected to increase the production of maize by 30%, rice by 49%, and soybean by 25% and sorghum by 28%...”

The story going round is the view that Government has set an ambitious target to increase the production of these crops this year and they are sufficient targets to reduce imports and save the economy foreign exchange.” I thought the stories have been misleading but if those are the true targets of the campaign, then I wonder if the campaign is SMART and in tandem with the President’s call for “care for the environment”. From our experience, the business model to add 337,500 metric tonnes of rice in 2017 is two-fold: (1) The area under production can be expanded or (2) productivity can be improved on existing farmland. These two business models are not mutually exclusive as both may be required to achieve a successful campaign. IFPRI (2014) concluded that most of growth in rice production in Ghana was as a result of area expansion (7.5 percent), with the remaining 3.0 percent coming from productivity improvements. Both options will alter the environmental footprint of farming. Of the two options, increasing productivity on existing agricultural land is preferable as it halts deforestation and degradation, avoids greenhouse gas emissions and the large-scale disruption of existing ecosystems associated with bringing new land into production. The IFPRI policy note advised policy makers to focus on expanding rice production under irrigation as that would be the most effective way to increase rice production in Ghana. To produce an additional 337,500 MT of rice in 2017, are we going to see over 75,500 ha of new rice fields irrigated in 2017 crop season?

Unfortunately, Ghana is noted for increasing production through increase in area under production and this is the more reason why the “Planting for food and Jobs” campaign ought to give further clarification to set us all on the path of SMART planning. It is based on the same reason that civil society calls on the Minister of Agriculture to make categorical statements and commitment to halt deforestation and degradation as well as respect the buffer zones of our water bodies, if we would have consensus on responsible campaign.

Where have you taken our Animals?
It is quite surprising that the campaign is silent on direct investments and plans for the poultry, small ruminant and other animal protein food systems. It was quite unfortunate that the only reference to the poultry industry was the assertion by the Minister that “the maize and the soybeans are meant to go into the poultry industry to reduce the cost of production…” as reported in the Daily Graphic of February 14, 2017. In the 2016 budget, the government had no commitment to promote and support the growth and development of the poultry industry. The Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers has complained about lack of enabling environment for private poultry businesses to thrive in the country. It has contended that about 95% of their market has been taken over by the imported chicken products. It secured the commitment of government in 2015 to a 40% reduction of imported frozen chicken but this commitment has remained on paper. The farmers said they also pay on average between 35% to 40% interest for every loan taken to boost their businesses and that the high interest on loans taken from the banks makes it difficult to enhance production and profitability of the poultry industry. The seeming lack of focus on poultry and livestock in the five pillars of the campaign makes everyone wonder if the new government would at all consider any investment in the poultry industry which has seen decades of negligible investment and as a result, brought about an increase in the cost of production and reduced the competitiveness of the sector.

Rethink Storage strategy
The strategy on how to manage the storage during periods of bumper harvest appears to be one that has hit the headlines recently. In the Daily Graphic story of February 14, 2017, the minister is quoted to have said that there is “…a plan to buy all surplus produce from farmers…and would be dealt with by engaging the private sector to convert abandoned cocoa warehouses in cocoa-growing areas to buy the surplus for storage”. In the February 17-23, 2017 edition of the Mirror however, the Senior Minister is cited to have “announced that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) had arranged with the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to use the extra capacity at their warehouses to help buy off the grains from farmers”. How do we reconcile these two approaches? Are they mutually exclusive? If we must use the current empty space for storing grains, would we completely convert the space or would we switch back and forth?

It must be noted that there are best practices in the cocoa and chocolate industry and cocoa beans has chocolate and the cocoa industry, quality requirement and standards for storage and warehousing. One of the best known storage practices is that “Cocoa beans must always be handled and treated as a food grade material and, as a general rule, bagging materials and warehouses used to handle and stock cocoa beans should be used exclusively for that purpose.” CAOBISCO, 2010. Giving that the prices of cocoa is going to continue to fall, unless we did something, at least, short term storage of the excess cocoa beans, what would be our priority for the use of space in the cocoa warehouses? Would we prioritize storing cocoa beans to influence the price in the market or would we convert them totally, to storing grains and other foodstuffs?

Subsidy Reforms or Nothing
The agriculture sector, mainly the crop division and cocoa, already provides subsidized inputs to farmers. These include fertilizers, pesticides and, high-yielding seeds. These subsidies and have faced huge challenges in recent times and one wonders if the new government has conducted any audit of the current programme to fashion out better implementation strategies which would make the campaign more focused and result oriented. According to the MOFA, the introduction of the national fertilizer subsidy programme was one of the key agricultural policy intervention programmes introduced by the government. The introduction of the programme was meant to address the challenges of high cost of fertilizer and to increase crop production and productivity for food security and sustainability. MOFA website indicates among other things that “the subsidy has been a major contributory factor towards increased food production in the country.” However, relying on production data from the MOFA and FAOSTATS between 2007 and 2012, an analysis of the implementation of the subsidy programme by Fearon J. et. Al (2015) concluded that Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy programme has been ineffective in spite of the huge budgetary allocation. Since inception in 2008, a total of GH¢202.5 million has been invested but evidence on the ground suggests that, little has been achieved by way of output growth that can be attributed to fertilizer use. Although the study established a positive relationship between crop output and budget spending on subsidy, it was not significant at the 10% level, thus weakening the possible impact of the subsidy programme and supporting claims that most of the recorded growth in agriculture was due to land area expansion as opposed to yield increases. In so far as potential farmland exists, Ghanaian farmers will continue to find it cheaper to expand the area under cultivation than to intensify production. This is in line with Boserup’s (1965) main hypotheses. If given the choice, farmers will expand into new areas before they intensify production. Sustainable intensification might be a difficult choice for farmers and lead them to ignore the long-term effects of land degradation on productivity if access to available technology, cost of inputs and government policies are not properly aligned. The campaign must therefore aim at identifying technologies and contexts that are likely to produce win–win outcomes and help decision-makers to make hard choices.

Subsidy reform should be among the priority steps in the “planting for food and jobs” campaign to cut poverty, boost inclusive growth, give better support and allow more priority spending. It is strongly recommended to phase out untargeted or poorly targeted subsidies for private inputs such as fertilizers. Our experience is that generalized fertilizer subsidies are not very effective in helping the poor and marginalized farmers particularly women and young farmers who need these subsidies most. It is estimated that only a small percent of those subsidies reach the poor while the remaining percent benefit the non-needy farmers. The current blanket system of subsidies does not serve its purpose as the majority of the subsidies go to the wealthy and resourced farmers. It is also recommended to use targeted subsidies with transparent objective targeting criteria. With such targeted social safety nets, the fertilizer subsidies would better support the poor and marginalized farmers. Such targeting would be more cost effective, harmonized, and thus leave more fiscal resources for other priority spending such as investment in infrastructure, education, and health, which would benefit communities at large.

Growing food is a serious business, not about Civic Responsibility

The “planting for food and jobs” campaign has been described as a call to duty and a civic responsibility on all Ghanaians to plant something. I tend to agree that our backyards could efficiently be utilized for growing food instead of having them cemented and contributing to the rate of flow of water and flooding in our cities today. Having schools and prisons produce enough, for example, to feed them may be a good thing. I do not know how many schools in our country today still have abundant and available land for school gardening. For those that have and are willing, we should make sure that we do not sacrifice productive teaching and learning sessions for growing food and we shouldn’t expose our children to hazardous, health and child labour vulnerabilities. The teaching of agriculture is now part of integrated science and one would wonder how many contact hours one would have to conduct practical in the school garden. We should conduct this business within the framework of the law and the Child protection framework of the country. You can certainly trust that our affable Honourable Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ms. Otiko Afisa Djaba would have her own ideas and so would be the Ministers for Education; Health; Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation as well as Minister of Land and Natural Resources. This calls for inter-Ministerial approach to finding solutions in our schools and other areas to be affected by this campaign.

But can we describe agriculture as a civic responsibility? Must we just grow food for growing sake? Indeed, one is never too young or too old to venture into farming. It is one of the most non-discriminatory sectors – a sector that the young and old as much as women and the youth participate actively. Some have even described the tilling of the land or fishing or looking after animals on a daily basis as a form of exercise and keeping fit. But the most important aspect for many farmers is that it must put food on the table; whether as subsistence or through the means of earning income for the family. For the Ghanaian Government, the intent is clear: reducing imports and increasing exports and achieving food sufficiency, creating jobs and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. One would have thought that the Minister for Agriculture would call for modernization and rural transformation through agriculture, with a call to our illustrious farmers’ to consider farming as a serious business. Farming as a business is serious enough. Fortunately, the secret to the success of many smallholder farmers is their thinking of farming as a way to make money, and not just as a traditional way of life. Our farmers must be trained to be professionals in accessing and applying new technologies and methods, crop diversification, bookkeeping and good planning and access services to be efficient, productive and viable.

I also checked my dictionary about what it means to consider an initiative as a Civic Responsibility. It reads that it is the "responsibility of a citizen" comprised of actions and attitudes associated with democratic governance and social participation. It is a responsibility of citizens in a society to exhibit certain attitudes and actions related to participation in society and democratic governance. Civic responsibility is associated with involvement in church and government and memberships with voluntary associations. Should we categorize farming and planting for food and jobs as a civic responsibility? I think it does matter what one plant and how many seeds one put in the soil. We should not just do something, we should have a plan that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound if for both our urban and rural food needs of our country.

Foreign Investment is not panacea
The President of the Republic has confirmed that the Canadian government has offered to support the campaign with 135 million Canadian dollars. Other governments are proposing to support specific districts and specified inputs to support the program. In the last 60 years, Ghana has received foreign aid with the conviction that real economic development would begin with emphasis on providing aid to poor rural and urban communities. A Heritage Foundation study found that foreign aid retards the process of economic growth and the accumulation of wealth. The Foundation argued aid dependency pulls entrepreneurship and intellectual capital into non-productive activities, thereby blunting the entrepreneurial spirits of many Africans. The United Nations Development Program describes the 1980's, the period of highest foreign aid transfer to Africa, as the “lost decade.” A number of studies have shown that there is no correlation between aid and economic development, rather, most aid recipient countries have become and remained more dependent of foreign aid. Critics now contend that foreign aid to Africa must be changed for a number of reasons, but mainly because it has not worked. Further, they argue that most aid initiatives are well thought out, and most of the funding intended for projects, rarely reaches the intended target groups. The missing funds are stolen, wasted or re-apportioned to priorities identified by politicians or senior government officials. Is it not surprising that the most important crop of some of the foreign country’s that wants to help the campaign is rice, accounting for about 90 percent of the country's total grain production and over 40 percent of farm income? What do we think is the interest of those foreign countries to support our campaign to reduce rice importation by as much as 49%?

Some additional food for thoughts
According to “the Finder”, Dr. Afriyie Akoto stated that the success of the Akufo-Addo government is largely linked to the success of the agriculture sector. If this is a campaign that the Minister of Agriculture would like to link to the success of the President of the Republic of Ghana, then we ought to give it a much deeper thought and put a lot more effort into developing SMART goals to be able to operationalize it without much difficulties.

Food System Approach is Key: I have been surprised that the campaign appears to focus heavily on how we will grow enough food to feed Ghana’s population and reduce imports. This has the tendency to neglect the broader food, nutrition and income security that goes beyond just producing enough calories. Ghana needs a food system approach that would relate to a more holistic way of thinking and of working. This could begin with taking a step back to look beyond a specific focus area so as to understand the broader system and goals. In Ghana, a typical example can be found in the need for support actors from the agriculture, forestry, natural resources, gender and children, health, nutrition and development sectors to come together and explore the role of biodiversity and child protection in food systems to support resilient production systems, livelihoods, dietary diversity and nutritional outcomes. Such approaches would require the campaign team to be working in inter- and trans-disciplinary ways, which calls for our institutions to build networks and partnership to design new ways of working together and communicating with one another.

Leverage on Partnerships: The private sector and civil society have also been investing substantial resources into agricultural projects and programs. The most common institutional arrangement has been the use of public-private partnership (PPP) models. The Minister of Agriculture should consider leveraging this model and properly engaging the private and civil society to define roles and responsibilities for a successful campaign. It is also strongly recommended to consider the involvement of farmers in the design, formulation and implementation of any partnership arrangement for the campaign. Though the citizenry expect the government to increase its role and care for the farmers, the business community, including the farmers, should enjoy considerable freedom provided by enabling environment in the country. The Government should set economic policies and market regulations that positively influence the competitiveness and profitability of businesses to be able to drive the campaign.

Provide Enabling Environment, don’t take our jobs: Government has a role in promoting small and medium business within the campaign. Businesses create jobs and pay taxes, making it natural for government to want to help them start and thrive. Government should offer direct and indirect assistance to individual businesses and industries through a variety of monetary grants, paid research, legislation and worker training to enable startup businesses to thrive. Governments should create specific programs for helping businesses start, continue to grow and be successful. Governments should help improve the infrastructure needed for businesses to thrive that would be too costly for any one business to fund. This includes building and maintaining roads, bridges, rail lines, airports, seaports, and energy transmission lines and telecommunications systems. The central bank policy should encourage local banks to work with start-ups or area business that wish to expand. We should also have loan programs that offer low interest rates and target women, young people and businesses in processing and value addition. The government should provide special grants to academic institutions working to develop new technologies that will benefit industry, with the caveat that the institutions share the technologies with industry.

Make Agriculture Attractive to the youth: It is generally speculated that a huge challenge that prevents the youth from venturing into agriculture is the lack of land. While there is the need to advocate for land reforms and land administration in the country, making agriculture inclusive, attractive and profitable is key. If we would be successful at attracting the youth to agriculture, we should invest in ICT as Technology makes farming interesting to the youth. The idea of e-Agriculture might fascinates our youth to join a global community of practice to dialogue, exchange and share ideas related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for sustainable agriculture and rural development. Marketing and price are another impediment that faces young people who have launched agriculture-based start-ups. Many youths who venture into farming do not have the right skills set and experience to identify markets.

Develop our next generation of entrepreneurs: To develop the next generation of rural entrepreneurs, we need to unlock the potential of farming through mentorship programmes targeting small businesses. Established farmers and successful smallholders should be encouraged to hold the hands of our next generation of farmers in the trade. We should be actively involved in mentorship to be able to combine knowledge with experience to take agriculture to the next level through co-creation and value-addition.

It is also common knowledge that the fortunes of our agriculture can go up manifold through value addition. To achieve this grand goal, there should be plans and resources to and technology to help farmers add value and package their products. Improved milling is for example one way to substantially improve the competitiveness of Ghanaian rice by reducing losses and improving quality. The private sector is already responding to such opportunities by establishing mills along with large‐scale rice production. Value addition must be an essential element of the campaign with matching investment and leveraging the private sector.

Christian D. B. Mensah
Sustainable Agriculture Expert
[email protected]