Gov't To Enhance Private Partnership In Agric Sector

The government is proposing a public private partnership for its Medium Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan (METASIP), which is expected to cost more than GH¢1,532.4 million over a five year period.

Ministry of Agric sources say, funding for the agricultural sector is expected to be raised through increased budgetary allocation and other internal sources.

The medium term agricultural plan comes at a time the government is also establishing the commodity exchange and a regulated warehouse receipt system to ensure price stability and affordable financing scheme to farmers who could use their produce as collateral.

The objective of the intended project is to improve the capacity of public and private stakeholders in the area of innovative supply chain finance and commodity exchanges.

This is expected to overhaul the country’s agricultural landscape by correcting the imbalances in the value chain by providing marketing opportunities for the farmers.

The investments concerned would include development of facilities for agribusiness in storage and processing to cost about GH¢200 million and equipment for mechanisation services to be operated by entrepreneurs and farmer based organisations to cost about GH¢100 million.

At a two-day workshop on “Business Opportunities in the” Medium Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan held on Tuesday April 17 to discuss opportunities for a public private partnership of the agricultural plan, Nana Osei Bonsu, Director General of PEF, said although the agricultural sector was one of the most important in the economy, the private sector was not exploring the sector enough.

Nana Bonsu said it was unfortunate that in spite of this waste, the country imported a lot of food stuffs to the detriment of local agricultural produce.

He said contrary to what many thought, the agricultural sector had a lot of opportunities for investment which when explored, could enhance greatly upon the prospects of the sector and therefore urged participants at the workshop to take advantage of the opportunities METASIP had to offer, and help boost the agricultural sector of the economy.

A representative from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mrs Lena Otoo, said Ghana was so agrarian that it was almost impossible to transform the economy without paying enough attention to the agricultural sector.

She said METASIP basically aimed at enhancing the agricultural sector by applying science and technology, adding that, because it was public-private sector collaboration, the ministry had set up an Agri Busines unit, to clearly outline the responsibilities of both government and the private sector in the collaboration.

Mrs Otoo said, the government would ensure that besides aiming at maximizing profits and output, social responsibility would also be a core value of the collaboration.

Mr. John Nkum, a consultant for METASIP, said the lack of progress within a particular sector, was sometimes due to people doing business in an individualistic manner and not liaising with each other.

He said without doing this, it was sometimes difficult to know the trends of demand and supply which made business a lot more difficult than necessary.

The Medium Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan (METASIP), 2011-2015, has been developed, using a largely participatory process, and based on Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP) II objectives.

It has a target for agriculture sector GDP growth of at least six per cent annually, and government expenditure allocation of at least 10 percent of the national budget within the plan period.

The targets are in conformity with agricultural performance targets of the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda, the ECOWAS Agricultural Policy, and the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program of NEPAD.

In 2009, the government spent GH¢781.4 million for the agriculture sector (including cocoa), which represented 9.0 per cent of its total spending.

Lifting the proportion of its spending to agriculture to 10 per cent would therefore require an increase of about 10 per cent over the 2009 figure.