Naa Dr. Alhassan Andani is the Founder and Executive Chairman of LVSafrica Limited
Naa Dr. Alhassan Andani, the Founder and Executive Chairman of LVSafrica Limited, has described efforts related to the country’s agriculture as a joke.
According to him, the country’s agricultural practices mostly focus on the consistency of a product but fail to address data on consumption levels on a weekly or monthly basis.
Additionally, he highlighted the lack of structures necessary to ensure the long-term production of livestock and crops for consumption, rather than focusing on short-term solutions.
Dr Andani made this known during an interview with Etsey Atisu, the host of the Lowdown on GhanaWeb TV, on September 30, 2024.
“Agriculture in Ghana is a joke. I can challenge the poultry farmers; if I put poultry farmers together and say ‘I need 20,000 dressed birds a day,’ I’m sure they will have a challenge. We can have 10,000 birds at Christmas or Easter but that’s not how to do business.
“Every day people are eating. Birds must be there, fish and mutton must be there on a consistent basis but nobody is figuring out how much of it we consume per day, per week, per month and what kind of structures should we put in to produce that,” he said.
Dr. Andani also said the country’s agricultural sector is not capitalising on or utilising the technology and skills needed to meet its monthly needs.
He lamented the constant discussions surrounding agriculture and the failure of stakeholders to take action.
The former banker further urged the government and agricultural stakeholders to implement scientific approaches and better organisation in crop production for economic gains.
“We are all very seasonal so we have not really, as it was captured or not, used technology and skills to cultivate agriculture in such a way that it serves our daily, weekly, and monthly needs. We just follow the rain and if the rain is good, we have a bumper harvest, poor storage and we have not even thought about how to preserve.
“Lots of wastage then we go into a lean season and the rains come again. Whether it’s crops, animals, or tree crops, we leave everything to chance. The evidence is there and we all saw the agricultural development of China, places like Ukraine. They are not deep or older than Ghana’s economy so, it’s just about focus, and putting the science and organisation into production on a consistent basis, but there’s a lot more talk around policy in agriculture than real action in agriculture,” he said.
Watch the full interview on GhanaWeb TV below:
MAG/AE
