The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) has stepped up efforts to mobilize up to two million farmers onto the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme for the 2021 farming season. The goal is to increase farmer participation in order to boost general agricultural production in the country.
Currently, 1.7 million farmers have been registered under the Planting for Food and Jobs programme.
Additionally, the Ministry also wants to improve maize production to 3.2 million Metric Tonnes (MT) in 2021 from the 1.8 million MT produced at the start of the programme in 2017.
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto made these known whiles speaking in an interview. He said the ministry seeks to consolidate the gains of the programme in the last four years and to expand it into a bigger enterprise.
“In the coming years, the aim is to consolidate what we achieved over the years and to expand it to benefit more farmers.
“Basically, what we are saying is that we are doing more of the same but in a more intensified and an extensive way to bring in all farmers in Ghana in all the modules.”
Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Agric Minister.
Successes of the PFJ Modules
The PFJ has five modules, each of them with different gestation periods. The modules are the Food Crops Module, Rearing for Food and Jobs, Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) and the Greenhouse Village for Vegetables and Mechanisation. The Agric Minister indicated that the government flagship programme has been a huge success.
Dr Akoto said production of maize, rice and soya bean had been impressive under the staple crop module. From 1.8 million MT of maize produced before the PFJ, he said “we were able to touch three million metric tonnes in 2019.”
“Had it not been the severe drought which occurred in the southern part of this country in 2020, we were hoping that we would have gone to 3.2 million MT.”
He said with the increase in food crop production, the country had become a maize trading centre in the sub-region. This resulted in neighbouring countries coming to take the surplus stock away.
Dr Akoto described the PERD as a historical and major intervention. With the PERD, he indicated that gov’t seeks to diversify away from the over-reliance on cocoa; not with one or two crops, but with seven selected crops.
Additionally, he explained that government expects to earn about $2.5 billion in the next eight years under the tree crop module. He said that the target is to earn as much as cocoa earns in foreign exchange for the country.
Furthermore, he mentioned that an authority already approved by Parliament had been set up with the headquarters in Kumasi. Dr Akoto explained that currently, the ministry is waiting for the seed money for the take-off of the Tree Crop Development Authority.
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