While the government has made some gains since the implementation of its flagship agricultural programme, the Planting for Food and Jobs Programme (PFJ), the programmes cannot be described as “extremely successful”.
This is because of the many lapses and inadequacies that have come up during the implementation of the food programme.
It would be recalled that in an earlier interview, the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto stated emphatically that the PFJ had been a resounding success, describing it as “extremely successful”.
Emmanuel Wullingdool, an Agric Consultant who doubles as the Executive Director for the Centre for Women and Nutrition has taken exception to the comments of the Minister.
He spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East.
“We can say there are some successes but we cannot take out the challenges. If you look at the programme, we talked about 5 pillars. One of the pillars is the distribution of improved seeds but go to the various communities, farmers are still using their own seeds”.
“Secondly, you talk about inputs [like] fertilizers, of course, we have moved up in the usage of fertilizer per hectare in the country. But then again, what calibre of farmers are accessing these fertilizers? If you go to the communities, look at the youth, women and persons with disabilities, are they able to access these fertilizers?”
“To say it [PFJ] is a massive success, I would say it is an overstatement,” he said.
Another pillar of the PFJ was providing increased access to Extension Services. Mr. Wullingdool, who is a farmer himself, explained that during the course of last year’s planting season, the AEA within the District visited his farm only once; that is, during the land preparation stage thus exposing the problem of continued inadequacy of Extension Services.
He continued to say “the other two pillars which have to do with access to market and then e-agriculture has not functioned properly. In the marketing area, you know clearly that there are challenges. Also, when you talk about e-agriculture, there are still knowledge gaps,” he added.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wullingdool, speaking on the same platform while commending the government for an additional 80,000 national warehouse capacity for grains and cereals has questioned the government for its plans toward storage and processing of perishable food products like fruits and vegetables.
A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
