An Agronomist and politician, Dr. Abu Sakara Foster says the Government’s Flagship programme, Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) encountered problems because it lost focus.
“When the program started it was focused and it helped people to get the correct seeds to plant and they had their yields. But later, the programme lost focus, other projects were added but there was no funds to run it, so in the process, it diluted the effect. There were lots of problems, seed producers were paid after two years, who does such business? So those are the issues that affected the programme. The diversion to so many different other projects with limited resources and then the implementation itself.
“Then the overblowing of the project. When you have a little bit of success and then you want to multiply the project by one thousand you started talking then people will have expectations. But when there’s a small problem, you will be found wanting. That is why when we experienced food prices going up people were questioning the relevance of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme. The Minister told us that there’s food in the rural areas, but until now, has the food prices come down? Have they not gone higher,” Dr Sakara said in an interview on Ghana Kasa on Kasapa 102.5FM on Thursday.
He further gave reasons why the fundamental objectives were not achieved.
Apart from the management issues I have talked about there were other issues that militated against the success of the programme. Every business expects to have income. When you look at our farmers, the cost of fertilizers is three times higher, fuel prices is up, transportation fare has been increased, and on top of that, labour which you hire on your farm also wants price increase. One one piece of land and same yield, you have introduced all these cost so what is left for the farmer, there are no incentives.
“So you realize that the farmers start switching crops, especially the ones that have export value because for the same amount of energy, you’ll get higher income and that affects your food base. Because if you switch the efforts to things that going outside then definiately, things that are going to come inside will go down and what will be the result? You will end up bringing stuff of outside. So that is the result we have. Do you consider that as success,” Dr Sakara who is the founder of the National Interest Movement asked?
Source: Kasapafmonline.com
