The Minority in Parliament has warned Ghanaians to expect high prices in food items by the close of the year.
The caucus said the recent launch of Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) Phase II by the government is just a ruse.
It is convinced the second phase of the programme will not be any different from the first one, which failed, according to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) members of Parliament (MPs).
“So clearly, there is nothing special about PFJ Phase 2.0,” the Deputy Ranking Member on the Committee of Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs, Dr Godfred Seidu Jasaw, said on Wednesday, August 30.
“It’s just a way of telling us government can no longer support input subsidy and that farmers will be left in the hands of private commercial entities to negotiate and transact their own production input regimes based on market determinants.”
He said even the current programme, under the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will not allow the economy to support an input subsidy programme.
The Wa East MP raised questions about the new programme.
“What exactly are you going to spend the 660 million Ghana cedis approved for PFJ in the 2023 budget on since PFJ was ended way back in December 2022?
“Why has government failed to support food crop farmers in Ghana since January 2023?
“Private Agro- dealers and aggregators have been implementing various forms of input credit support schemes to farmers for many years now, what exactly would this new PFJ input credit do differently?
“In what exact ways are you going to get financial products to agribusinesses at so called reduced interest rates?
“How are you going to protect the small holder farmer from profit motives and market risks under which the input dealers operate?
“How will you achieve import substitution for critical commodities like rice, maize and poultry since you have no measure in place to reduce input/production cost?
“How are you going to protect the agri-businesses against risk of no or under recovery of produce from beneficiary small holder farmers?
“What is the exact start date the farmers will begin to benefit from governments integrated smart input credit program?
“Who would hold the produce stock at the end of each production season-government or private businesses?
“What are the top 3 priority commodities for the short term out of the eleven crops selected for promotion in PFJ Phase 2 that drive down current high food prices will deliver food security in the short term?
“What is the cost of PFJ 2.0 and where will its funding come from since it wasn’t provided for in the 2023 budget?”
To him, the second phase of the programme “is substantially not different from the PFJ this
government has implemented since 2017”.
Therefore, the NDC MP is calling government and, indeed, the new minister to do something new.