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Be prepared to pay more for food – Agric Consultant warns as fuel prices hit ghc7.990

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Emmanuel Wullingdool, an Agriculture Consultant who doubles as the Executive Director for the Centre for Women in Agriculture and Nutrition (CWAN) has asked Ghanaians to brace themselves for further increases in the prices of food and food products available on the Ghanaian market.

He explained that due to the direct relationship between fuel prices and transport fares, Ghanaian families would suffer severe consequences considering the constant increase in price of fuel.

“Ghana has witnessed significant increases in the prices of fuel recently. These increases would have a negative impact on different sectors of the Ghanaian economy. One sector that would see a greater negative impact is food products as we can expect further increases in food prices which could heavily affect poor families. The negative impact on the food products would be as a result of high transportation costs associated with transporting food products. The overall effect would be high food insecurity,” he said.

Mr. Wullindgool, speaking to A1 Radio was worried about the health implications of same on poverty-saddled families in rural areas. “The UN defines food security to “exist when all people, at all times, have physical, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. Economic access to food refers to the price and affordability of food products.  Therefore, a further increase in the prices of food products could threaten the food security of persons, particularly those in the low-income bracket,” he said.

The Agriculture consultant called on the government “to find a way of insulating food products against fuel price increases by setting up food banks in strategic areas, especially areas that are food insecure so as to lessen the burden of these negative impacts”.

To further mitigate the impact of the effect of fuel price rise on food and food products, Mr. Wullingdool encouraged the promotion of backyard farming saying “there will also be the need to promote back-yard gardening and innovative ways that can shorten the food chain. A shorter food chain would mean people are able to produce their own food and not rely on external supplies”.

“In the medium to long term, Government will have to increase its commitment to the agriculture sector by ramping – up production of strategic grains such as rice, maize, sorghum and millet. This calls for more investment in key areas such as mechanisation, inputs, storage, and processing. Finally, there will be the need to give full meaning to the governments own agenda of one village one dam so as to promote all-year-round farming. When food products are available, the impact of fuel prices and other factors would be minimized,” he added.

A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana

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