He alleged that although food prices were reasonably low in the producing areas, some market women and middlemen were taking undue advantage by making supernormal profits at the expense of consumers and farmers.

Ministerial panel

The minister was responding to questions at a high-level ministerial panel discussion on adaptation and agriculture at the just-ended COP27 at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt on the theme: “Mobilising innovative financing for building resilient and sustainable food systems on the African continent.”

The moderator sought to know why food prices in Ghana were the highest in the sub-region even though the PFJ programme seemed to be successful.

“Mr Minister, why is it that with the success story of the programme, food prices in Ghana remain the highest in the sub-region?” the moderator of the programme asked.

High food prices

To the question, Dr Akoto alleged that the high prices of food items was not because of scarcity of food, but that it was because those individuals were focused on making supernormal profits.

He said after a familiarisation tour of some farming regions in the country and an inter-ministerial meeting with some market queens and transporters, “it was decided that we organise transportation to the farming communities to bring the food items to the urban areas to sell to civil servants and the general public”.

Production

Dr Akoto said within the five years of implementation of the PFJ programme, the quantity of fertilisers supplied to beneficiaries had increased from 121,000mt in 2017 to 239mt in 2021.

He said the government invested the equivalent of $4878.2 million on subsidised fertiliser and seeds, adding that “in nominal price, the value of the output of investment in the PFJ over the five years is estimated at about $8.6 billion”.

The minister said for instance that with the funding from the AfDB under the Savannah Zone Agricultural Productivity Improvement Project (SAPIP) and the Savannah Investment Programme (SIP), rice production had increased in the northern part of the country.

“Cumulatively, total production of rice, maize, soya and vegetables at 178,000 mt, 211,078mt, 48,000mt and 22,000mt respectively had been produced from 21,000 hectares of land developed for commercial production under the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation in the savannah (TAAT-s),” he revealed.

Dr Akoto said productivity for rice, maize and soya had improved from 2.0 mt/ha to 6mt/ha for rice, 1.9mt/ha to 6.2mt/ha for maize and soya improved from 0.8mt/ha to 2.2mt/ha.