NPP’s Planting for For Food and Jobs Programme is a failure– Sammy Gyamfi

National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress( NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has given eight reasons why governments Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme is not yielding desired outcomes, and therefore is not a success as the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and government claim.

In a Facebook post, Mr Gyamfi cites, among others, the decline in the growth rate of the Agricultural Sector, the hikes in food imports, the increase in prices of food products and poultry feed as reasons why the programme is not a success.

“Folks, let’s examine a few pertinent questions relative to the boastful claims of the NPP about the success of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme and the growth of Ghana’s Agriculture sector"

If all is well with Ghana’s Agric Sector as the NPP would want us believe:

1. Why the decline in growth rate for the Agric sector from 6.1% in the year 2017 to 4.8% in 2018, and further down to 2.6% for the first half of 2019 (compared to 4.7% growth recorded for the first half of 2018)?

2. Why the astronomical increase in food imports? For example, annual importation of maize has increased from 31,000mt in 2016 to 50,000mt for 2019 according to the U.S Department of Agric .

Also, annual rice importation has increased from $300million to $400million in 2016.

3. Why did the Akufo-Addo government as recently as 2nd January 2019, borrow 2,750 tonnes of cereals (maize, rice, millet and sorghum) from ECOWAS to support the School Feeding Program? Why is Ghana, for the first time in history, borrowing food from ECOWAS in the midst of so-called plenty? And why has the Akufo-Addo government failed to replace the borrowed cereals till date?

4. Why the steep increases in the prices of food products on the market?

5. Why are poultry farmers complaining about the high cost of poultry feed (maize and soyabeans) as was recently reported by Myjoyonline.com

Mr Gyamfi added that the smuggling of fertilisers meant for the programme, the decline in the production of cacao and the fisheries sub-sector attest to the failure of the programme and a decline in the growth of agriculture as a whole.

Rice glut and bumper harvests of other local food produce

In regards to the rice glut in some parts of the country, Mr Gyamfi blamed it on the the increase in rice importation that has discouraged local milers from purchasing the locally produced rice.

For the bumper harvests in yam and plantain among others,he argued that it is a normal seasonal occurrence.

Government has often praised its Planting for Food and Jobs Programme as a success that has led in increased agricultural output. However, Mr. Gyamfi concludes that the programme has become a “cheap political sloganeering”.