The President of the National Farmers and Fishermen Association, Mr Philip Abayori has called on government to shift emphasis from channeling resources to improve the agriculture sector to addressing challenges confronting the sector.
“We need to have a paradigm shift as to how we can move resources to create employment, increase our productivity, strengthen the bottlenecks and rather ensure that we do not direct resources back to where inefficiencies are,” he said.
According to him, it was good that government wants to support the sector but “it should be a holistic approach, where the issues that we are confronting will be lifted.”
Mr Abayori was contributing on the critical issues in the 2013 Budget Statement and Economic Policy organised by the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) on his assessment of the provisions made by government for the sector in the budget. The progamme was supported by Star Ghana with technical assistance from the World Bank.
Mr Abayori explained that initiatives for the sector was laudable but they would have wished for a budget that would go directly to strengthen capacity of operatives in the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to deliver good services and major infrastructure that would support agriculture.
Bemoaning their challenges, he said the post harvest losses were over 40 per cent, because of their inability to transport their produce from their farm gates to market centers and “even to process and store them.”
“We realise we are weak because we have inadequate resources, lack of credit facilities and even those we obtain credit facilities have to pay dearly for it” he said.
According to him, the component of the budget brings several issues to the fore, adding, “for instance if you look at the livestock sector, which is the least in the chain in agriculture, the support going there is to enhance capacity of farmers to procure 30,000 cockerels which is supposed to reduce importation of poultry and meat products.”
That notwithstanding, a director of the Ministry of Finance, Ms Eva Esselba Mends said government was on course to revamp the sector to ensure food security in 2013.
She said the broad objective of government policy for agriculture was to ensure food security and in doing that technology would be introduced in the various production processes - crop production through to the market centers.
She explained that mechanisation centers had been set up to provide equipment to farmers to reduce labour and the drudgery of producing crops
“Again, one of the areas you find in the budget is research. Government has supported research in agric and that is to ensure we reduce post harvest losses and add value to the raw materials that we produce. Those are the two key objectives of government in the 2013 budget in terms of providing food security,” she said.
She said food security means ensuring that food was available and affordable. She said this included reducing the price of food adding “that is why the introduction of fertilizer subsidy and improved seeds were important”.
The sector which hitherto was the largest contributor to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) recorded a growth rate of 0.8 per cent in 2011 and 2.6 per cent in 2012 as against a target of 4.8 per cent.
But in 2013, government is budgeting that the number of Agricultural Mechanisation Service Centers will be increased to cover at least 170 districts in 2013.
Again, government would also distribute 180,000 metric tons of subsidised fertiliser to farmers under the fertiliser and seed programme among other interventions.GB
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