Chief Executive Officer of Akuafo Nketewa Company Limited, Dr. Charles Kwowe Nyaaba, has blamed the decentralisation of Ghana’s agricultural sector for what he describes as the persistent decline in agricultural productivity and the country’s growing dependence on food imports.
Speaking on A1 Radio in reaction to concerns over Ghana’s annual food import bill, estimated at about $3 billion, Dr. Nyaaba argued that the sector began to lose its strength the moment agricultural administration was moved from the direct control of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to the local government system.
According to him, agriculture is too critical to the country’s economy and job creation agenda to be treated as just another department under the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies.
“Decentralising the agricultural sector to become part of the local government system was the beginning of the woes of the agriculture sector. The very day agriculture was decentralised, the sector started crumbling because the departments no longer had the resources to carry out agricultural activities effectively,” he said.
Dr. Nyaaba explained that before the decentralisation policy, regional and district agricultural departments reported directly to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, which enabled resources meant for farming activities to flow through the ministry to the local level.
However, under the current arrangement, agricultural departments at the district level now depend on the assemblies for funding through the composite budget system, a development he says has weakened the sector.
He noted that agriculture appears to have become the only major public service sector that fully accepted the decentralisation arrangement, unlike the Ghana Health Service, which still maintains a reporting line to the national level.
“The money that comes to the assemblies is what they now allocate, in part, to agriculture. But agriculture does not have much say in budget allocations at the assemblies. In effect, we are killing the agriculture sector ourselves,” he stated.
Dr. Nyaaba said the situation has serious implications for employment, food security and national development, stressing that agriculture remains one of the few sectors capable of creating jobs for both rural and urban populations if given the needed support.
He criticised successive governments for politicising agriculture rather than treating it as a strategic national development priority.
“All our governments come and play politics with agriculture. They will go, and we will still remain where we are. Agriculture is the backbone of the economy, and we cannot continue to treat it as a political tool,” he lamented.
Ghana’s agricultural devolution process formally began after Parliament passed Local Government Instrument (L.I.) 1961 in 2009, with implementation taking effect in 2012. Under the reform, Departments of Agriculture were integrated into the structures of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, while staff were transferred from the Civil Service to the Local Government Service.
The composite budget system was also introduced, meaning local agricultural departments now depend on district budget allocations rather than direct financial flows from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
While acknowledging the broader importance of decentralisation, Dr. Nyaaba maintained that agriculture requires special handling because of its direct link to food production, livelihoods and economic growth.
He therefore called on policymakers, farmers, civil society groups and development stakeholders to push for a review of the current arrangement.
“To me, it is not too late. We all need to add our voices. Agriculture is so sensitive that you cannot simply merge it and treat it like any other unit of the district assembly,” he stressed.
A1 Radio | 101.1 MHz | Moses Apiah | Bolgatanga
