The President of the Peasant Farmers Association Ghana (PFAG), Mr. Nashiru Adams Mohammed, has advised the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to stop talking and go into action.
Mohammed said the prevailing agricultural policies do not favour farmers in the country and that something ought to be done to entice farmers to put in more efforts to produce more to feed the country. He called on farmers to join forces with the PFAG to enable them have a united voice to fight for better agricultural policies that would be farmer-friendly.
Mohammed announced that PFAG was liaising with Parliament for the passage of the Agriculture Credit Bill to force government to set aside seed money to help provide credit facilities to farmers in the country. He also called on the government to, as a matter of urgency, establish agro-processing factories throughout the country to help farmers add value to their produce and also reduce post-harvest losses.The National Coordinator of the Ghana Trade Livelihood Coalition (GTLC), Mr. Ibrahim Kalbila, said in the Ghana Trade Policy launched in 2005, it was revealed that agricultural subsidies as well as high tariff and non-tariff barriers in other countries limited the potential for Ghana to produce and trade.
He said a number of studies, including a recent one by the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), pointed to cases of dumping of foreign goods on the Ghanaian market. Kalbila prescribed a reasonable level of protection for all domestic producers based on sectors, depending on their ability to compete with imports, while encouraging improvement in competitiveness and development in export potential.
