Food Price Hikes: We saw this coming but Agric Minister denied it – PFAG

The Executive Director of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Dr Charles Nyaaba, says the current high prices of food is a situation they predicted in 2021.

He said the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, however, rubbished the predictions, indicating that Ghana had enough yields as a result of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) and other programmes introduced by government in the sector.

On Monday, October 10, the World Bank ranked Ghana highest in sub-Saharan Africa with regard to high food prices in 2022.

According to the October 2022 Africa Pulse Report, food prices in Ghana have since January 1 gone up by 122 percent.

Since the start of the year, the report says, food prices have increased sharply in many countries, largely due to the Russian/Ukraine war.

According to the Food Price Index in Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana has recorded very sharp prices in food.

Speaking on the report on TV3‘s Midday Live on Tuesday, October 11, Dr Nyaabah said if quick measures are not put in place by the government, the situation will be worse.

He advocated that Ghanaian farmers must be incentivised to cultivate domestic crops to lessen the dependency on food importation.

He also said the government should concentrate on massive irrigation projects to ensure all-year-round agriculture, and not the ‘One Village, One Dam’ kind of irrigation projects.

Source: 3news.com|Ghana