An Agriculture Policy Consultant, Emmanuel Wulingdool has admonished the government to avert its attention to the totality of the agricultural value chain to tackle the high cost of food products and ensure food security in the country.
The agricultural sector being the breath of Ghana’s economy has been starved by successive governments of the attention it deserves in order to ensure increased and consistent growth.
Speaking to Mark Smith on A1 Radio’s Daybreak Upper East show on the back of reports from the World Bank that ranked Ghana 1st with the highest food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2022, Mr. Wulingdool said the agricultural sector needs a holistic review which will tackle the whole agricultural value chain and food security.
He said ” I think we should look at it in the value chain perspective. We look at inputs, production, processing, storage and the kind of policies that need to run through the entire chine to ensure that there is a win – win for all the people along the value chain.”
“Over the years,we have not paid so much attention to this whole value chain concept to the extent that we have farmers currently complaining of cost of production and consumers at the last end also having the challenge with high prices of products.”
“Then you have producers and consumers saying they are not benefiting and it’s like the middle men are those who seem to be the ones who are benefiting the most. The value chain would ensure that everyone along the chain gets the most out of it.”
To help address the concerns of profiteering of middlemen, Mr. Wullingdool encouraged the government to build a more robust storage network across the country to be managed by the National Buffer Stock Company. (NAFCO).
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz| Samuel Adagom|Bolgatanga| Ghana
