Agric Minister Targets Food Security Within 5 Years With Phase 2 Of Planting For Foods And Jobs

Ghana’s Minister for Food and Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong has assured citizens of his ministry’s capacity to deliver on the country’s food security needs by 2028.

Addressing farmers and financial institutions at a Presidential Breakfast Meeting on Agriculture and Agribusiness Financing in Accra, the minister who is also the member of Parliament for Abetifi in the Eastern region declared that Ghana can confidently say and boast that it will be food-secure and resilient within five years.

The minister lamented about what he described as the annoying and embarrassing narratives of importing onions and tomatoes from the Sahelian regions and affirmed his commitment to reverse the trend as soon as possible.

“The enormity of leading the charge to transform Ghana’s agriculture through the new strategy has never been lost on me, right from the inception of my stewardship,” he added.

The minister expressed confidence in the existing potential of the agriculture sector, which he said could turn Ghana’s fortune around if fully tapped.

“These include abundant arable land for crop production, especially the virgin valleys suitable for rice production, good soils for the production of a variety of crops across the country, water resources for irrigation, favourable weather, and a diversity of food commodities that provide numerous avenues for job creation along the agriculture value chain, to mention a few,” he said.

The Minister also indicated that PFJ 2.0 will work as an intervention on a sound footing.

According to Mr Bryan Acheampong, statistics show that for poultry, Ghana consumes a total of 324,000 metric tons (MT) but is only able to produce just about 15,000 MT, implying a woeful self-sufficiency of under 5%.

“In the five-year plan of PFJ 2.0, Ghana is expected to move its self-sufficiency from 5% to 7% by the end of 2023, and to 13% in 2024, and progressively attain full self-sufficiency of 110.6% by 2028. Specific steps have been taken in this regard,” he stated.

As a result, the minister announced that in the immediate term (October to December 2023), the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) is supplying 4.5 million day-old chicks, vaccines, and starter-pack feed to anchor farmers and their out-growers.

This intervention will result in the production of an additional 13,200 MT of poultry meat by the end of this year, which will increase Ghana’s self-sufficiency to 7%.

In 2024, the Ministry said, it will ramp the poultry sector up with support for 18 million day-old chicks, vaccines, and starter-pack feed, which will lead to the production of 42,600 MT of meat and increase Ghana’s self-sufficiency to 13%. This trajectory will continue until Ghana reaches full self-sufficiency.

“Plans are also advanced to revive the poultry industry this year through the rehabilitation of 300 outgrown poultry farms across the country over the next 12 months. Each of these farms can be scaled to produce 200,000 birds within each poultry cycle of 4 months,” he said.