YAFO Institute has organised a policy dialogue themed “Beyond Slogans: Rethinking Ghana’s Agriculture: Reflections on Some Key Policies and the Way Forward,” focusing on past policies, performance, limitations, and future strategies, including the Planting for Food and Jobs programme by President Akufo-Addo.
Held on Thursday, February 22, the meeting had the representation of Dr. Haruna Gado Yakubu (an animal nutrition and feed safety engineer), Moderator and President of the YAFO Institute, Nathaniel Dwamena, and Joshua Larweh Tettheh, Policy Scholar, YAFO Institute.
Dr. Haruna Gado Yakubu, an Animal Nutrition and Feed Safety Engineer, in addressing participants, deduced inspiration from the era of the Nkrumah’s leadership in terms of agriculture; he stated, “The 1940’s swollen shoot disease created havoc on cocoa farms, which made people in Gold Coast understand the disadvantages of relying solely on cocoa exportation, which resulted in Ghana’s post-agricultural reforms to diversify exports.”
He mentioned that this disadvantage prompted the establishment of a commission of inquiry in 1948 to ascertain the cause of the lack of yield in other crops. The committee reported that people’s lack of attention to foodstuffs and cash crops other than cocoa, the weakness of agricultural education, and the absence of plans for future development were the main causes of the country’s weak agricultural produce.
This information aided “the then government in 1949 in establishing the Agricultural Produce Marketing Board to induce farmers to diversify cash crop production. Additionally, the government established the Agricultural Development Corporation with an initial budget of 100,000 (hundred thousand pounds) to encourage the large-scale production of these new crops,” he added.
Agricultural Policies and Previous Performance Adopted in President Akuffo Addo’s Era of Planting for Food and Jobs.
Dr. Yakubu, in addressing the performance of agricultural policies adopted by the Akuffo-led government, stated that the policy was objectified to ensure the immediate availability of selected food commodities, provide job opportunities, create awareness for formal and public institutions to farm and establish back yard gardens, and serve as food import substitution.”
Relaying on how effective the policy has been, he said, “According to the Ghana Statistics Service, 3 years after the implementation of Planting for Food and Jobs, the agricultural sector experienced a GDP growth of about 6.1 percent in 2017 and 4.8 percent in 2018.”
He noted that in 2017, there was a significant yield increase, which is ascertained by a maize yield increase of 67 percent from 1.8 metric tonnes per hectare to 3.0 metric tonnes per hectare; rice yield increased by 48 percent from 2.7 metric tonnes per hectare to 4.0 metric tonnes per hectare; and soy bean yield increased by 150 percent from 1 metric tonnes per hectare to 2.5 metric tonnes per hectare.
According to Dr. Yakubu, the improvement of this yield was a result of the recruitment of extension agents to propagate the principle of the policy by ensuring that farmers understand the scientific basis of farming to increase yield, though with a positive impact.
“The problem with the policy was the inability to create the market and the non-value addition of produce, fertilisers, and input theft, which characterised the policy, especially at the border zone where people smuggle fertilisers on the back of camels to neighbouring Togo, as said by the Finance Minister, the inability to honour creditors, especially suppliers of fertilisers, thus organisations that were supplying fertilisers, and the partisan nature of sharing input,” he added.
Way Forward on Agricultural Sustainability
On measures to address agricultural sustainability, he claimed that effective dissemination will be essential for putting new policies into effect.
“During the dissemination phase, feedback is often received, which could result in a change to the design of the policies and the strategies themselves.”
He advised the government and other stakeholders to dispose of the attitude of not accepting constructive criticism. He encouraged the government to listen to intellectuals when these programmes are rolled out.
“No one is a repository of wisdom; the fact that you are in politics does not mean that you know all. People sit back to watch and can give you feedback to implement good policies.”
Beyond the political slogans, he urged policymakers to develop a medium-term implementation plan under which annual implementation plans will be formulated.
“We must identify the needed actions in all implementation channels, including the assignment of responsibilities and target programmes; an implementation secretariat must be established; or a high-level committee must be established to manage the execution and monitoring of these strategies; this must be done by professionals and not merely political partisan appointees,” he admonished.
Questions and Answers
In addressing concerns raised during the question and answer section of the dialogue, Mr. Tetteh, in response to ways stakeholders can strengthen existing agricultural policies to meet the needs of the public, said agricultural policies need to be void of politicisation so people can give suggestions that can boost the effect of the policies implemented. He beckoned on the public to abstain from tagging individuals who give opposing views as belonging to the opposition party, as it discourages these people from expressing their opinions.
“Let’s have an agricultural agenda for the country where, if Party A comes into power, we are going to continue what Party B has started because it is going to meet the needs of the people.” Supporting Mr. Laweh’s take on the concern, Dr. Yakubu noted that farming practices practiced in the past are different from contemporary times; hence, consensus needs to be reached with farmers to identify their ideas and needs so policymakers can identify gaps that need to be filled.
On how to integrate climate change into agricultural policies beyond the slogans, Dr. Yakubu urged farmers to be climate smart by taking the temperature of the area of farming into consideration, rainfall patterns over the years into consideration, and designing models that will improve agricultural production and sustenance. He prompted policymakers to “make use of and implement insight gained through the climate change summit.”.
Dr. Yakubu, in response to whether the Legislative Instrument on Import Restriction has an impact on some of the key items, retorted that “with import restriction, it is always important to state that importation is not that bad, but what you import as a country is always under your consideration, so if you can produce, for instance, maize for your citizens and also have surplus and you go ahead to import maize, then you will have a problem, but if you do not have capacity to produce a certain food crop and you go ahead to import, then it is not a bad idea.”
On import restrictions, he submitted that ”we must have a phase of implementation that will select commercial enterprises that will do an estimation model to see, for instance, in 2 to 5 years the amount of metric tonnes they can produce in the country; if it is sustainable, then we can go ahead and place restrictions on that product, but without an estimation model or piloting, if we go ahead and do the restriction, we will come back eating our own words.”
“So, with import restrictions, it is better to look at where we have strength before necessary action is taken,” he claimed.
Speaking about how sustainable agricultural policies can be enhanced Dr. Yakubu suggested that there needs to be a frequent review of agricultural policies, which must incorporate feedback from farmers and policymakers. The policy should not be a plan for a 4-year term to sustain the political party in power but a lifetime plan to induce growth. Mr. Tetteh added that the government needs to give a tax waiver on fertilisers so farmers can afford them.
Dr. Yakubu noted that the cause of the farmers wandering in poverty despite the instrumental role they play in society can be attributed to the fact that there has been no channel for farmers to add value to their produce. He voted for the embracement of technology to assist in turning raw materials into finished goods. “I suggest that there must be an inter-ministerial policy on how to integrate agriculture with technology, so for instance, in developing this policy, there must be a corporation between the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Trade, and the Ministry of Agriculture. This ministry can come up with a strong policy document that can offer value addition,” he propounded.
Dr. Yakubu remarked that “according to Maslow’s theory of needs, which indicates that food is a basic need, if we can succeed in agriculture policy, it will reflect in production, and people will be satisfied. The food prices in the market will reduce, and we will not end up bringing plantains to the Ministry of Agriculture to sell.“
Background to the Discussion
Many governments since 1957 have implemented many agricultural policies with the objective of boosting Ghana’s agricultural sector. The current agricultural policy is Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), which is the government’s primary agriculture project for Ghana and has had huge hopes for the youth since its launch in 2017. The government of Ghana’s flagship project for agriculture, Planting for Food and Jobs, operated under five modules and promised jobs for the youth. The modules include food crops, planting for export and rural development, greenhouse technology village (3 villages), rearing for food and jobs, and agricultural mechanisation services.
So far, GHS 6.2 billion has been spent on the programme, which created 2.28 million jobs, according to the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
However, the programme has faced significant challenges, including low yields, unsubstantiated jobs, and the inability of farmers to benefit from subsidies.
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