Government Urged To Priotitise Agro Industries

Government is being urged to priotitise agro industries under its flagship One-District, One-Factory policy. At a national stakeholders’ conference on agriculture in Accra, players in the agric sector noted this will be a sure way to create more employment opportunities, increase the income of rural dwellers and enhance the quality of lives of farmers.

Programme Officer for Food Security Through Cooperatives in Northern Ghana (FOSTERING) Madam Patience Ayamba drew attention to a Ghana Living Standard survey revelation that poverty was still highest among food crop farmers in the Northern and Volta regions of Ghana. She noted there was the need for more to be done to help lift farmers out of poverty.

Madam Patience Ayamba was speaking at a national stakeholder conference on Agriculture organized by SEND Ghana in collaboration with the USAID, OXFAM and other partners. It was on the theme: “Financing for Agriculture.’’

The stakeholders noted that the “planting for food and jobs” policy which is expected to provide 750,000 jobs is laudable because it has potential of absorbing the unemployed youth as well as increase farm productivity, ensure food security and improve nutritional status of families. They however want government to come clear on the amount of financial resources needed to execute the policy.

They also lauded the fertilizer subsidy programme currently being implemented by government. The stakeholders identified inadequate extension services to women and small holder farmers as the main bottleneck to achieving food security in Ghana and commended government’s intention to employ 3,200 extension agents and 1000 service personnel.

FOSTERING is a five year project with funding from the Canadian Co-operatives Association, in partnership with SEND-Ghana and Ghana Cooperatives Credit Unions Association. The initiative aims at increasing sustainable gender equitable food security for over 42,000 women and men in eight districts.

Country Director of SEND Ghana George Obimpeh said in recent times agricultural sector performance has been poor in terms of annual growth rate and contribution to gross domestic product despite its huge importance to the economy and considerable increase in budgetary allocation.

He revealed that in 2009, about 1.2 million Ghanaians were classified food insecure and 2 million were vulnerable to becoming food insecure with majority of them in the three regions of the north.

He called on government to increase its core funding to the agric sector and resist the temptation of resorting to the Annual Budget Funding Amount as a substitute for funding the agric ministry’s capital expenditure. Annual Budget Funding Amount is a portion of revenue from the sale of oil that government uses to support the budget and is usually dedicated to agriculture.

Also present at the national conference were representatives from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Chief of Party Northern Ghana Governance Activity Project, Parliamentary Select committee on Agriculture and Canadian Co-operatives Association.