Press Release to all media Houses

You would remember that the NPP government in assuming office in 2017, came out with the Planting for Food and Jobs Policy which was championed by the then Minister for Agriculture at the time, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto. This policy brought a lot of relieve to Ghanaian farmers who produced a lot and there was a lot of food in Ghana from 2018 to 2020, there by a reduction in food inflation. Food prices went considerably low in Ghana. This helped the NPP to win the 2020 general elections.

With the appointment of the new Minister of Agriculture Mr. Bryan Acheampong in 2023 due to the resignation of Dr.Owusu Afriyie Akoto to contest in the NPP Presidential Primaries, He introduced the phase two PFJ 2.0 programme which is digitally led. It is a great improvement from the phase one.

The Ministry of food and Agriculture on Wednesday October 04, 2023 advertised a request for expression of interest to engage the services of Aggregators, Mechanization Services providers and Input Dealers to provide services for the PFJ Phase two programme. The PFJ phase II is private sector led. Aggregators have been engaged to provide inputs to farmers and they will aslo be responsible for the recoveries as we. Agriculture Extension agents were trained and tasked to sensitize farmers, register them using their Ghana card and mapped their farms as well. 

About 80% of the people in the Upper West Region are farmers. The farming season started and they have been so many challenges especially in the Upper West Region regarding the implementation of the PFJ 2.0 programme. Some of these challenges include Inadequate inputs released, late release of inputs, aggregators to districts they are not familiar with among other challenges. As we all know, farming is time bound and the early release of inputs is a major success in farming and will also enable these farmers to recover inputs cost back to the government. Out of the 11 districts in the Upper West Region, only four of these districts have received Inputs and even the inputs received can only take care of less that 1% of registered farmers and the mapped areas. This has created a major problem in our communities because some farmers who spent a lot of money clearing their lands and hoping that they would have received inputs by now have been disappointed. Aggregators assigned to these districts are being accused, Parliamentary candidates are being accused, party executives are been accused. In fact, districts that have received some inputs have a very difficult task of dispatching these inputs, farmers fight everyday at the offices of these aggregators. And we understand these challenges are just peculiar to the Upper West Region but the entire country.

With the unreliable rainfall pattern in the Upper West Region especially for this year which has made a lot of farmers worried, fertilizer and the use of improved seeds is a major necessity for farmers for this cropping season.

It will be recalled that during a recent interview by Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Bryan Acheampong on Metro TV with Paul Adom Ochere, he made an accession that “the maize from the Sissala land is the best in West Africa, it has been tested and the results says so”. Based on this, we the people of the Upper West Region wish to plead with the Presidential candidate of the New Party who is also the vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr. Alhaji Mahamud Bawumia and the Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Bryan Acheampong to resolve all issues with the system and get inputs released to us to enable us produce. We the farmers of the Upper West Region were very happy when we heard of the PFJ 2.0 Phase II programme. We knew this was going to go a long way to reduce the high cost of mechanization and inputs that we are usually confronted with during every cropping season and especially this year. Also knowing very well that this is an election year, we will really plead for the immediate release of inputs to prevent most farmers from voting against the party in the region.

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