80% of peasant farmers want Planting for Food and Jobs programme reviewed
About 80 percent of farmers across nine out of the 16 regions of Ghana are demanding the modification of government’s Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative.
This is the key highlight of findings by the Peasant Farmers Association Ghana after an assessment of the PFJ during the 2022 planting season.
The farmers argue that the agricultural policy has been poorly implemented, forcing quite a number of them to abandon the trade thereby threatening food security.
At a stakeholder validation and budget credibility workshop in Accra, Executive Director of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Charles Nyaaba said members are concerned about the sustainability of the policy.
“80 percent of the farmers prefer that the PFJ should either be modified, about 15 percent said it should be completely scrapped and replaced with a new model. We found out on the ground is that in 2022 the implementation of PFJ did not benefit the farmers. It is the reason we saw the food supply in 2022 actually reduced which reflected in the prices of food in the country”, he said.
On prices of fertilizer, about 80 percent complained that the prices in 2022 were too high.
90 percent had to reduce their farm sizes. About 99 percent had to also reduce the quantity of fertilizer applied on their field, about 15 percent completely stopped farming and engaged in other activities.
The assessment found that the Agric Ministry does not maintain up-to date verifiable database of farmers, farm sizes under cultivation and farm locations.
It also captured government’s inability to spend the agriculture budget as planned which continues to hamper activities.
Other highlights include the late payment to fertilizer companies which affected the ability of companies to deliver thereby threatening the sustenance of the program.
The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana whose members are beneficiaries of the PFJ carried out the assessment to establish effectiveness of the implementation and its effect on beneficiary farmers.
Source: Ghana Business
