Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture, has refuted accusations that food costs are increasing in Ghana.
He said that the figures provided by the ministry on food prices refute such assertions.
He said over the weekend at a media engagement in Accra that food commodity prices are actually decreasing.
Ghanaians have been cautioned by the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) to prepare themselves for an increase in food costs in the country.
Ghana is in the harvest season, according to GAWU General Secretary Edward Kareweh, yet food costs are high on the market. He forecasted a price hike in January and February 2022.
The General Secretary was responding to a survey conducted by 3FM’s Sunrise on the country’s food costs.
The survey explored Takoradi Market, Makola Market in Accra, Mallam Atta Market in Accra, and Tamale Market, among others, and sellers in all of them complained about high food prices.
On Thursday, Mr. Kareweh informed in an interview that, “It is not what we say, but what we do.”
“We need to move away from people telling us what it is rather than going to the grounds to look at what is there”.
He said “farmers never got fertilizer to put on their farms, how do you expect a bumper harvest? “
We can’t proceed to the conclusion in the state that we are in now because prices are high everywhere”.
Mr. Kareweh warned that “we should expect the worst to happen in January, February onwards. Food prices would rocket further.
“We should expect prices to go up further. We are in a harvest season and so ordinarily, food prices should have been down. But we are not experiencing that”.
Reacting to some of these issues, Dr. Akoto OPwusus Afriyie said “The statistics that we compile in this ministry do not support that. The size of kenkey that you are talking about, we have had 5th year of Planting for Food and Jobs, no complaint about the size of or reducing the size of kenkey this year.
“Why? Because there was a drought last year in the southern part of this country, a very heavy drought both in the major and minor cities in the forest in the southern part. People forget these things very easily and that affected suppliers.
“This year, fortunately, apart from the one-month delay in the major rainy season in the south, the rains have been excellent.
“ The naysayers were saying a few months ago, including the former President that there is going to be famine. In fact we are on the cusp of a major boom in food production. To the extent that, if you monitor the Tamale market for instance prices are tumbling and we are still at the beginning of the harvest.”
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