The Member of Parliament for Wa East, Dr Godfred Seidu Jasaw, has accused the Akufo-Addo government of failing to prioritize the agric sector in the country.
According to him, this was evident in the 2021 budget presented in Parliament a few days ago and duly approved by the House last week.
Dr Jasaw made the claim during the debate prior to the budget approval last week.
“There are a number of critical issues facing agriculture in this country which demand that this Akufo-Addo’s led government take drastic action. There is no investment plan for the agric sector in the budget, and we know about 70 percent of rural population is engaged in primary production with a lot of leakages in the system.”
“The planting for food and job is already in an insecure position as over GHS120 million worth of fertilizer is said to be unaccounted for. So a lot of investment ought to go into the intermediate so we can rip the benefits of the primary production,” the Wa East lawmaker said.
Already, Ghana commands a great share of the Africa quota of the European Union (EU) market in fruits and vegetables and other leading processed export products.
Cocoa has historically been a key economic sector and major sources of export and fiscal earning thereby putting Ghana as the second-largest cocoa-growing country in the world.
The leading non-traditional products are fresh or chilled tunas, Shea nut, Cashew, Fresh or Chilled fish, Yams, Banana and Pineapples.
This, Dr Jasaw contended that the government could not be talking about agriculture modernization without investment and provision of stimulus support to smallholder farmers for improved production with the intermediates to agro-processing and to market.
“I think we cannot be talking of agriculture modernization without putting in place the right measures, the intermediates. The farmer is just a primary producer, but some foodstuff becomes scares in the market not that there is a shortage in production, but how do they get to the market for the consumer. We all want to take in fresh food, like fresh tomatoes, but how do we get it? So the best and proper way is to put in the proper mechanism and that is the intermediates,” the NDC MP added.
