Source: newsthemegh.com
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA)’s decision to reassess the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) program and replace it with the aggregator and outgrower model under the “Enhanced PFJ” has been praised by the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG).
A value chain approach that supports mechanization, extension services, warehousing, and marketing services should be aggressively pursued in opposition to an approach that focuses primarily on fertilizer and seeds, according to PFAG, which added that there are proven records of outgrower models that were delivering value for farmers when properly implemented.
When Dr. Charles Nyaaba, Executive Director of PFAG, presented the results of an evaluation of value chain actors’ experiences during a stakeholders’ validation workshop on the 2022 implementation of the PFJ in Tamale, he received praise for his work.
The evaluation’s goal was to offer constructive criticism to aid the PFJ’s implementation moving forward.
According to the estimate, high PFJ fertilizer and seed prices in 2022 will force 85% of respondents to lower the size of their farms, 89% to switch from growing food crops to tree crops, and 15% to totally give up farming in favor of non-farm activities.
Additionally, it was discovered that only 15% of respondents thought the PFJ fertilizer and seeds were of good quality, while over 80% of respondents thought they were of inferior quality.
According to the assessment of whether or not the PFJ should continue, the majority of respondents desired its abolition and the provision of an adequate support system for peasant farmers, adding that “the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate’s inability to hold companies delivering poor quality inputs when evidence is available, led to dwindling interest of farmers in the PFJ inputs.”
“This contributed to escalating food prices for consumers and industry and the eventual collapse of over 70% of poultry farms in the country,” the statement read.
While encouraging the MoFA to succeed, the PFAG urged it to look out for opportunists and corrupt people who would take advantage of the project and fail it in the name of farmers.
More information on the difficulties was provided by Mr. Sayibu Morrison, a peasant farmer from Mion District in the Northern Region, who bemoaned the high cost of PFJ inputs last year and said that it constrained the farm sizes of the majority of smallholder farmers.
“Last year’s situation was unpleasant,” he remarked. Even though there were no pricing disparities between PFJ fertilizer and open market fertilizer, some businesses received payment. Most farmers had to scale back their operations because they couldn’t afford the pricey fertilizer.
The Northern Region farmer Hajia Abiba Baako expressed her dissatisfaction with the lack of access to PFJ inputs for farmers in her district as a result of the poor condition of the roads and the refusal of input dealers to drive that far due to low profit margins.
She asked the government to fix the roads in rural regions so that farmers could get input when they needed it.
Farmers no longer have faith in any PFJ fertilizer, according to Mr. Marifah Abdul, a farmer from Sissala East in the Upper West Region, who stated that the quality of inputs under the PFJ should be of concern.
According to him, farmers were not interested in PFJ fertilizer last year due to past encounters with its subpar quality. I hope the government will pay attention to our issues and take the appropriate action.
During the workshop, participants—while encouraging MoFA to succeed with the Enhanced PFJ—also expressed concerns about a potential political takeover of the program and called for broader stakeholder consultations to develop transparent and effective models that would deliver the best outcomes for farmers, resulting in increased food production and lower prices for consumers.