A comprehensive storage strategy will deal with post – harvest losses & inflation – CSIR
As food inflation in the country continues to rise, further pushing national inflation to unprecedented levels, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is urging government to invest in a comprehensive storage strategy to deal with post-harvest losses in the country.
This the CSIR believes will eventually make food available all-year round which will keep prices and food inflation under control.
While the national inflation rate stands at 23.6% for the month of April, it is important to note that food inflation according to data from the Ghana Statistical Service accounts for 50% of that the national rate.
All the 15 food subclasses recorded positive year-on-year inflation with Oils and Fats, recording the highest of 43.4%. Other sub-classes like Water, Cereal products as well as Fruits and Vegetables recorded inflation rates of 42.1%, 31.5% and 30.1 respectively.
The sub-class to record the least rate of food inflation of 18.5% from April 2021 to April 2022 was Coffee and Coffee substitutes.
Speaking to Citi Business News, on ways to check the rising rate of food inflation, the Director-General at the CSIR, Prof. Paul Bosu said, despite the improvement in the number of storage facilities, government needs to now look into the effective transportation of food items from the hinterlands to the storage facilities across the country to ensure food stored during peak seasons are made available in lean seasons to keep prices stable.
“We are still struggling with post-harvest losses. We can attribute the issue to our transportation systems and our storage systems, the latter however has seen massive improvements thanks to Government. So the storage facilities are ok, but now we need to commit resources to go into areas where farmers struggle to transport their harvested produce, to bring such produce to the storage facilities. This will help in stabilizing prices as food will be available all year-round.”
Source: Ghana Business
