5 Agriculture Associations bare their teeth on Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto over Food security issue
5 Agriculture Associations bare their teeth on Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto over Food security issue
Five associations focused on food security have asked the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto to come clean with the state of the country’s food supply and its constant price increase.
According to the associations, Dr Akoto’s response to the current food security situation in an interview conducted on Citi Television breakfast show on Wednesday March 16, did not manifest the actual reality.
This was contained in a statement issued yesterday in Accra by the five associations namely The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana (CAG), the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), the Rice Millers Association of Ghana (RMAG), and Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG).
It said the 2021 Global Food Index ranked Ghana 82nd which meant that the country’s food security has dropped from its 76th position since 2016 stressing that Dr Akoto was downplaying the fact provided in the findings.
“In fact, in responding to a question on the state of food security captured in the 2021 Global Food Index where Ghana was ranked 82nd dropping from 76th in 2016, the Minister downplayed the content and significance of the report, disagreed and ‘poohpoohed’ the findings even though he could not provide any alternative report,” it said.
The statement noted that the sector minister continued to live in the thinking that things in the agricultural sector were rosy when the reality was that “we are saddled with unavailability of food coupled with high food prices.”
The Ghana Statistical Services (GSS), it said has indicated that food inflation had reached an all-time high of 17.40 per cent as at February 2022 which the associations said undermined the country’s food security.
“Prior to the consistent reports from the GSS, several organisations monitoring food supplies across various markets had confirmed these risks,” the statement added.
It admitted that the Planting for Food and Jobs programme has touched on several issues in the agricultural sector, which has contributed to the improved performance of the country in recent assessments on progress towards the Malabo Declaration.
However, farmer associations and other actors in the sector had out cried that the ministry had failed to resource the 11.3 million farmers across the country and it called on the minister not to “window dress” the facts.
The statement further said any policy being deployed at scale, could suffer several implementation challenges, adding that “non-agriculture sector policy decisions can have profound implications on the success of components of the planting for food and jobs programme.”
It therefore underscored the need for the sector minister to use the 2021 Global Food Index findings to improve policy implementation in scaling up the country’s food security.
Source: www.spotonnews.net
