The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Hon. Bryan Acheampong has revealed that a marvellous job has been done since he assumed office 11 months ago.
According to him, inflation on food stood at 61% a year ago but due to proper stratification, it now stands at 27%.
He revealed that acres of land have been allocated at Afram plains to ensure that food crops like tomatoes, onions, pepper, and other crops are harvested in Ghana to prevent continuous importation.
In a notable remark, he highlighted that the prices of food crops like tomatoes have significantly reduced and are currently being stabilized within Ghana.
Hon. Acheampong mentioned in an interview on Peace FM that a Center pivot irrigation system has been initiated to cover about 50 hectares of land in Afram Plains to cover about 10,000 hectares of land using a machine.
According to him, the land is being prepped for tomato harvesting to reduce the level of importation of tomatoes from neighbouring countries.
He also stated that GB Foods, the sole producer of Gino Tomato Paste is set to begin another plantation of tomatoes in the Afam plains which involves planting and processing tomatoes.
Minister Bryan Acheampong also shared that Ghana is moving steadily towards producing enough food to feed itself in ten key crops in 2029.
To achieve this, government has been meeting its agricultural goals and aims to continue this progress.
He expressed that, Ghana has been on track with its Planting for Food and Jobs initiative by successfully meeting targets for most crops in 2023, excluding poultry.
The main goal is to make Ghana self-sufficient in these key crops in five years.
Meanwhile, the registration of farmers for Phase Two of the Planting for Foods and Jobs program began yesterday, 12th March 2024.
At a press conference in Accra on Monday, 11th March 2024, he stated that it took a holistic view of the value chain approach by strengthening linkages among others along selected agricultural commodity value chains and improving service delivery to maximize impact.
“The direct input subsidy with a smart agricultural financial support system in the form of a zero-interest input credit, where payment will be in kind is the significant difference between PFJ II and the initial program”, he stated.
The said PFJ II programme was anchored on five main strategic elements mainly; input credit system, storage and distribution infrastructure, off-take arrangement or commodity trading, digitized platform and line of sight management and coordination.
Also, the registration for Phase Two of the Planting for Food and Jobs will enable farmers in the next phase of the programme to have access to the required support to boost their farming activities.
The registration will be done on the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Platform, GhAAP, a mobile application website.
Government of Ghana finally plans to raise tomato production from 27% to 35% and provide incentives for farmers to reach this target.
“Currently, we are about 27% for tomatoes and we want to move to 35% and we want to incentivize the tomato farmers to go back into tomato farming and you don’t achieve those targets overnight”, he emphasized.
This according to him is crucial for Ghana’s food security.
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Source: Comfort Sweety Hayford/ATLFMNEWS
