The Director of Presidential Initiatives in Agriculture and Agribusiness, Dr. Peter Boamah Otokunor, has highlighted what he describes as key differences between the “Feed Ghana” programme and the previous administration’s “Planting for Food and Jobs” initiative, stressing that the two initiatives are different.
Speaking on Channel One Newsroom on Monday, April 14, he underscored that during the erstwhile Akufo-Addo administration, the Ministry for Food and Agriculture exceeded its 2024 budgetary allocation, spending over 7 billion cedis without achieving tangible results.
According to Dr. Otokunor, “Planting for Food and Jobs” lacked transparency, with inputs often being diverted, leading to the programme’s collapse.
He, however, reiterated that the Mahama administration’s “Feed Ghana” initiative will focus on policy efficiency driven by targeting and differentiation, ensuring that inputs are used efficiently to yield the needed results.
“It is totally different because if you look at the planting for food and jobs, which they claim they planted, but the food and the jobs never came, you would see that they were looking at an input support regime which was not transparent.
“Nobody knew where to get the inputs, the inputs were taken away by rent seekers, there was a selection problem, which we call adverse selection and that led to the total collapse of the policy. We just threw money away.
“What we are bringing differently is policy efficiency driven by targeting and differentiation. For example, if you want to give any farmer an input, the farmer has four acres of land, you don’t go giving him 10 acres of input because if you do, he will divert it.
“The Feed Ghana Programme is going to be more targeted, more specialised and diversified, and we believe it will yield the result that we all expect,” he said.
