The sustainability of the government’s flagship agricultural programme, ‘Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ),’ in the Ashanti region is being threatened by the low recovery rate from participating farmers in the first year of implementation.
The current statistics from the Regional Directorate of Agric indicates that only GHS 220,000 out of the total of about GHS2 million due for recovery from the beneficiary farmers in the Region has been recouped so far with the remainder of nearly GHS1.8 million still in arrears.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah who made this known in Kumasi, expressed fear that the situation and other identifiable challenges could collapse the initiative in the Region in the next three years if drastic pragmatic measures are not put in place to recover the money.
Mr. Osei Mensah was addressing Agric Directors and other Agric officers from all the 43 Metropolitan, Municipal and Districts of the region.
He used the opportunity to officially hand over brand new double cabin Nissan pickups to MOFA Directors from the 30 old MMDAs.
The pickups are part of the $135 million funding package from the Canadian government under the Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana, MAG, initiative.
The Regional Minister mentioned also delay in the supply of production inputs to the participating farmers and farmers’ failure to comply with their obligation under the programme.
Mr. Osei Mensah emphasized the importance of PFJ which he noted, is very key to the success of other government initiatives like the One District One Factory and One District One Warehouse hence everything humanly possible must be done to sustain it.
The Ashanti Regional Director of Agric, Rev. John Manu, explained that the proverbial Ghanaian’s negative mentality about government’s sponsorship is partly accountable for the low-cost recovery under the Planting for Food and Jobs.
He noted that out of the projected 80 thousand farmers to participate in the programme this farming season, only 27 thousand have actually registered and participating with many others expected to come on board during the upcoming minor season.
He, therefore, entreated staff of the MOFA in the Region to work hard to improve on their achievements.
