Measures to ensure food security

Spread lead April 18/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE government has announced a number of interventions to ensure food security in the country.
The interventions announced by the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Ernest Debrah, included the provision of new rice seedlings and fertiliser at affordable cost to farmers .
According Mr Debrah, the government was also meeting with market women and transport owners to find ways of minimising the effect of transportation cost on food items carted from the hinterland into the urban areas on the prices of those items.
Speaking during his turn at the weekly ‘Meet The Press’ series in Accra yesterday, Mr Debrah further asked Ghanaians not to panic over soaring food prices on the international market, as there was enough to meet local demand.
He said the government was also keeping a close eye on locally produced food items to ensure that they were not smuggled outside the country to create artificial shortage that might impact negatively on their prices.
The assurance by the Food and Agriculture Minister comes at a time when governments across the developing world are scrambling to boost farm imports and restrict exports in an attempt to forestall rising food prices and social unrest.
Explaining the rationale for the intervention regarding the issue of fertiliser, Mr Debrah said only five per cent of farmers in Ghana used fertilisers, saying the high cost of the product on the international market was likely to force down the number of farmers who used it.
He said it was against that background that the government had intervened not only to ensure access to the product but also to make prices more affordable to encourage those already using it to continue doing so, while encouraging others to join.
On rice, he made it clear that the country was not in a position to produce enough to meet the demand because of the lack of land and the issue of “comparative advantage” in rice production.
However, he said the government would begin the distribution of ‘nerica’ seeds, which research had identified could be grown in areas where cassava could also grow on a large scale.
Mr Debrah said the government would soon complete a feasibility study on how to irrigate the Accra Plains to grow more rice to augment production from other areas of the country.
“We want to tap the Volta Lake to help provide all-year round water for such a project. We anticipate that it will be very viable to provide food for the region,” he said.
He said many more areas, including inland valleys in the country, had also been identified to be appropriate for rice production, noting, “We are going to ensure that these interventions work for us.”
Mr Debrah expressed regret that although there was enough locally produced rice on the market, many Ghanaians preferred the imported one, adding that local rice had been bagged in foreign sacks to outsmart unsuspecting consumers.
The minister said the ministry had also identified the imbalance in the production of certain staples, including maize, cassava, yam, among others, on a regional basis.
He said, for instance, that the Greater Accra Region, with a population of about 3.9 million people, fell short in the production of all the staples, while the three northern regions, with a population less than that of Accra, was producing more staples above what they could consume.
It was against that background that the government was working to ensure that the imbalance was addressed at less cost to areas with food production deficits, Mr Debrah said.
“Apart from rice, millet and sorghum, the country produced in excess of national demand in the major staples,” he said.
He asked Ghanaians to reduce the intake of foreign imported food such as rice and sweet potatoes to avoid the effect of the soaring food prices on the world market.
Mr Debrah said the country had large stocks of locally produced food items, including cassava, yams, rice and maize, at affordable prices and noted that unless the taste for foreign foods was curtailed, Ghanaians would feel the pinch of what pertained on the international market.
The minister said the time had come for Ghanaians to capitalise on the situation to use every available land space to grow food to add to the export stock.
“What is happening is a clear misfortune for others but we can take advantage of the situation to make more money,” he added.
Mr Debrah said it was now time for people to do more backyard farming to grow some vegetables and other staples that could grow on small pieces of land to reduce their budget on food.