The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) is set to strategically reserve 5 percent of harvest from the Planting for Food and Jobs Programme Phase II (PFJ 2) to curb food insecurity.
The following crops under the PFJ2, such as tomato, pepper, onion, rice, maize, soya, sorghum, yam, and cassava, will be reserved.
In an interview with Citi Business News, the Public Relations Officer for the MoFA, Bagbara Tanko said the initiative is intended to serve as a buffer in the event of a food crisis.
“It [the produce to be stored] is at the end of the harvest season. Remember, it is an input credit system where aggregators will give inputs to farmers. You will not pay upfront, but the inputs are quantified in produce. Then the government will take the produce worth the inputs they gave you and that produce is sent to the warehouse where all standards are followed to ensure that the food is of good quality”, Mr. Tanko explained.
Meanwhile, stakeholders within the agricultural sector have rejected the initiative.
They want MoFA to focus on providing the available inputs to farmers to commence production as they believe the implementation of the PFJ 2 has been long overdue.
The immediate past executive director and member of the Peasant Famers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Dr. Charles Nyaaba argues that such a policy from the Ministry is not a priority.
“We are in the middle of the season, and we are not hearing anything. For you to only come and tell us that the input you are going to provide you gather the food and then 5% stock for emergency purposes when farmers are already producing and no action is taking place”, he noted.
Dr. Nyaaba added: “They [the government] should be more serious in implementing the programme [PFJ Phase II], ensuring that the inputs are getting to the farmers. We are even saying that this whole thing, the government only needs to reduce taxes on inputs that we buy. Once you reduce taxes and then the input comes down, we produce them and put them in the market. ”
On the other hand, the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) has called for further interrogation of the five per cent reservation of produce from the PFJ2. Edward Kareweh is the General Secretary of GAWU.
“They may claim that they have got warehouses in some areas of the country. So they store it there. Before you store food, you need to process it. “You know, the foodstuffs that they talk about storing, they need to process it. Or the farmers have to transport it to where the warehouses? Is the ministry now going to engage in transportation activities whereby they have their vehicles, or they will rent vehicles that will transport the footsteps from the farm gate to where they are?,” he queried.