Abena Osei-Asare, the minister of state-designate for the Finance Ministry, has highlighted the significance of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative in stabilizing food prices in Ghana.
During her vetting by Parliament’s Appointments Committee on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, she emphasized PFJ’s crucial contribution to Ghana’s aim for food self-sufficiency.
She noted improvements in food production and attributed the prevention of worse price hikes to the PFJ policy.
Osei-Asare pointed out that before 2019, the policy led to reduced maize and rice prices and decreased imports of these staples.
She noted that the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to increased competition for food, resulting in price hikes, adding that there has been a reduction in food inflation from 59.1% to 28.7%.
“Yes, Mr Chairman, we have seen some improvements in our food production, and had it not been for the Planting for Food and Jobs policy, things could have gotten worse. When you check our numbers from 2018 downward, you realize that the prices of maize and even rice dropped. Coming down to 2019, we even reduced the amounts of imports we did for maize and rice.”
Expressing optimism for the second phase of PFJ, Osei-Asare also outlined the Akufo-Addo government’s measures to tackle various inflationary factors, including the PC Peg programme and seeking IMF support to bolster the economy.
“Previously you could have one factor determining the rate of inflation. But from 2022 to part of 2023, there were various factors. And so, we were not dealing with just one factor, but dealing with several factors. We needed to take measures that would help us address all those factors.
“That is what we did by coming up with the PC Peg programme to assist in reviving the economy and we also had to go to the IMF for some support to back the programme we had initiated,” Osei-Asare indicated.
The Agric Ministry on Tuesday, March 12, launched a nationwide registration of farmers as part of the second phase of the Planting for Food and Jobs Programme (PFJ Phase 2).
The PFJ Phase 2, which began in August last year, seeks to establish an input-credit guarantee system for farmers to address the challenges encountered during the program’s initial phase.
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