The situation the farmers say has left them desperate as they are unable to meet targets and sustain their operations.

This came up at a stakeholder forum, organized by the Ghana Canada Chamber of Commerce on attracting investments into the agribusiness sector.

The revelation comes barely a month that the Agric Minister, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto touted the Planting for Food and Jobs program as having created some 745,000 jobs.

His Deputy, George Oduro corroborating the performance also suggested that the figure should improve this year with the additional funding support.

But the Chairman of the National Farmers and Fishermen award winners Association, David Korboe, tells Citi Business News that may be difficult considering the bitter experience with the supply of seeds.

“The seeds most of the farmers including myself were supplied with, comprised grains. Even though I bought seeds from some of the approved research centres, I could say that the products sold to either nuclear or out grower farmers, contained grains. Most of the sorghum seeds for instance were affected so we ended up harvesting chaff,” he lamented.

The development has also affected the contractual agreements between the farmers and their suppliers.

As Mr. Korboe explains, they have been compelled to appeal for new terms to be able to meet the demand as planned.

“I invested hugely; about 1,000 acres of sorghum and the tonnage that I was able to harvest is nothing to write home about… we have written to our major supplier, Guinness since we want them to grant us audience to talk about the general performance of the season.”

The latest twist also comes at a time where some seed suppliers have complained of unpaid cash after fulfilling their mandate.

It is unclear what may have led to this as the Agric Ministry is yet to comment on this latest development as attempts to reach them for a response have been unsuccessful.

Meanwhile the affected farmers are set to present an official petition to the Ministry for a reaction.

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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana

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“750,000 [jobs] is nothing, I want to employ five million people not 750, 000,” he said.

Dr. Owusu Akoto Afriyie’s claims that they’ve created 745,000 “unofficial” jobs under the programme across the country, have been disputed by critics who say these ventures should be classified as “activities and not jobs” as they are not sustainable for the entire year.

[contextly_sidebar id=”Zwy9nq3VUT4NbvxcCQxjbFTkxOhdfGOJ”]“… The Planting for Food and Jobs campaign has absorbed this [rural] labour to the extent that we targeted 750,000 rural labour, and we were able to generate 745,000 jobs, and these jobs are unofficial jobs. They are not pensionable, they are not tax deductible so you cannot actually measure it like those in the formal sector where you are registered, you are paid a wage, you have to pay tax and so on, and therefore, it is very easy to monitor.”

“The whole idea is to generate enough jobs in our rural areas so that they would have something to do for them to stay, so that the Kayayei [Head porters] can go back to Tamale, Bolga and all those places to reach rice farmers,” the Minister said at a news conference last week.

745,000 ‘Planting for Food’ jobs are full-time

A deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, George Oduro, has also defended the figures, saying they are full-time employment ventures.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, Mr. Oduro said many of those employed under the programme help with a number of farming activities including the tilling of lands and the harvesting of crops.

“…This is [a] full-time job. You start from land preparation until harvesting…These are not jobs that you go for interviews,” he added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

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According to him, extending services to already existing farmers cannot be considered as creating new jobs.

His comments follows the Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr. Afriyie Akoto’s announcement last week that 745,000 jobs had been created under the first phase of the programme with the caveat that the jobs were “unofficial jobs.”

The Minister explained to the media that, the jobs were created in rural areas, and were essentially not taxable, and did not contribute to pension funds following the earlier skepticism that met the announced figure.

The figures were based on the number of additional inputs as well as improved seeds and fertilizers supplied to participating farmers in 2017.

[contextly_sidebar id=”Wele1g8diox1Wtj9YLBDlqvHliWletb1″]Speaking on the Big Issue, Inusah Fuseini said he had not seen any strategic plan for the implantation yet, but the Minister is out there claiming provision of jobs that do not exist.

“As I have said, I have not seen any strategic blueprint for the planting for food and jobs, they went and assisted farmers who are already in the field, they didn’t create new farmers, all they did was extend facility to them, is that creation of new jobs?, ”he said.

According to him, as long as the government cannot provide concrete evidence of people that have benefited from the planting for food and jobs project, there is still no solution to unemployment which is causing the youth to result to political vigilantism.

“The minister spoke about planting for food and jobs, can he give us evidence of people who were otherwise doing political vigilantism going to the farm?” he said.

Beyond Inusah Fuseini’s concerns, the General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU), also opined that government’s estimate of 745,000 jobs provided under the Planting for Food and Jobs programme might be exaggerated.

The Union’s General Secretary, Edward Kareweh, contended that the figure provided by the government would have to be scrutinized.

Lack of understanding

Despite the contentions with the figures from government, a Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Sagre Bambangi, said those doubting the number of jobs created by the programme needed to acquaint themselves with the situation on the ground.

According to him, the skeptics “have not been able to take time to appreciate the process involved in agricultural production.”

“In the course of agricultural production, we have input delivery, and in the course of the input delivery, a lot of stakeholders are involved and all these create jobs. For instance, if you are going to procure seeds and fertilizer, you are creating jobs for people who will haul the seeds and fertilizer. If you are going to haul the seeds and fertilizer, you are creating jobs for transport owners and haulers,” he explained.

The ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ programme, which was launched in 2017,  is expected to modernize agriculture, improve production, achieve food security and make Ghana more self-sufficient, whilst creating jobs for the youth.

The initiative is expected to increase the production of maize by 30%, rice by 49%, soybean by 25% and sorghum by 28% for current production levels.

The first phase of the policy is expected to cost the government about GHc 560 million.

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By: Farida Yusif/citifmonline.come/Ghana

The post No new jobs ‘under planting for food and job’- Inusah Fuseini appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

“If you have created [745,000] jobs, you must have some tangibilities to that effect. You are not giving us any figures. You are not telling us the number of jobs that were created within the various sectors within the value chain,” the NDC MP told Citi News.

[contextly_sidebar id=”ckEHRcowXZiIp4jsZlwzRU77scjuRZXH”]Mr. Quarshigah also questioned the substance of the jobs created, saying “if you are talking about people who were farm hands and all that, are these sustainable jobs?”

His comments followed the Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr. Afriyie Akoto’s announcement last week that 745,000 jobs had been created under the first phase of the programme with the caveat that the jobs were “unofficial jobs.”

The Minister explained to the media that the jobs were created in rural areas, and were essentially not taxable, and did not contribute to pension funds following the earlier skepticism that met the announced figure.

The figures were based on the number of additional inputs as well as improved seeds and fertilizers supplied to participating farmers in 2017.

Beyond Mr. Quarshigah’s concerns, the General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU), also opined that government’s estimate of 745,000 jobs provided under the Planting for Food and Jobs programme might be exaggerated.

The Union’s General Secretary, Edward Kareweh, contended that the figure provided by the government would have to be scrutinized.

Lack of understanding

Despite the contentions with the figures from government, a Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Sagre Bambangi, said those doubting the number of jobs created by the programme needed to acquaint themselves with the situation on the ground.

According to him, the skeptics “have not been able to take time to appreciate the process involved in agricultural production.”

“In the course of agricultural production, we have input delivery, and in the course of the input delivery, a lot of stakeholders are involved and all these create jobs. For instance, if you are going to procure seeds and fertilizer, you are creating jobs for people who will haul the seeds and fertilizer. If you are going to haul the seeds and fertilizer, you are creating jobs for transport owners and haulers,” he explained.

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By: Naa Shika Casesar & Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Provide details of 745,000 jobs – Quarshigah to gov’t appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to a Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Sagre Bambangi, government is committed to redeeming its pledge to the farmers.

Some of the farmers, who supplied seeds for the planting for food and jobs programme, have complained of the delay in accessing their monies months after supplying the seeds.

Dr. Bambangi told Citi Business News, the Ministry is fast-tracking the payment processes to sustain the policy.

“There are a lot of processes that our public financial system takes you through for you to access resources. I think the Ministry of Agriculture is engaged in these processes. Whoever hasn’t been paid will be paid as long as they legitimately supplied seeds to the Ministry,” he assured.

He stated that though a specific date has not been set yet, government is working hard to get the suppliers some relief.

“I can’t give a timeline now on when they’ll be paid, but government can assure the suppliers of receiving payment soon because government will be working with them for the 2018 crop season. Government would not want to jeopardize the success of the planting for food and jobs program by not paying the seed providers,” he stressed.

Dr. Bambangi was speaking on the sidelines of the two-day Ghana Civil Society Orientation Consultative Workshop on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) And Mutual Accountability.

He called for a multi-ministerial strategy in solving the problems within the Agricultural sector at the workshop.

The workshop which was organized by Trust Africa and the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana was on the theme “Strengthening the Advocacy Moment for Smallholder Agriculture in Africa.”

One of the objectives of the workshop was to sensitize CSOs on the CAADP objectives, strategies and current activities for the implementation of the Malabo Declaration.

Another goal is to end hunger and halve poverty through inclusive agricultural growth and transformation should be by 2025.

The workshop also sought to develop a common understanding among civil society partners on their role in the CAADP process at national, regional and continental level, and also to map out strategies and roles of CSOs for strengthening engagement in CAADP processes, working with coalitions among other objectives.

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By: Bobbie Osei/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana

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Admitting that he couldn’t “vouch for those figures,” the Union’s General Secretary, Edward Kareweh said on Eyewitness News that the number will have to be treated to more scrutiny.

[contextly_sidebar id=”fc9ZFqTTlABK8GmMdQZRdQhwmXgbUGnl”]The Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr. Afriyie Akoto announced that 745,000 jobs had been created under the first phase of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme with the caveat that the jobs were “unofficial jobs.”

The minister explained to the media that the jobs were created in rural areas and were essentially not taxable and did not contribute to pension funds following the earlier scepticism that met the announced figure.

The figures were based on the number of additional inputs as well as improved seeds and fertilizers supplied to participating farmers in 2017.

Jobs must be tangible

Mr. Kareweh expects the jobs created in the sector to be tangible as he noted that “if someone is in employment, you can see, so it is easier to verify. When you don’t see, it does not exist.”

Furthermore, he said the government needed to show how those jobs are generated because “if we are indeed able to generate such jobs, it would endear confidence in whatever we are doing and then, within a very short period, in our development trajectory, we will be able to curb the huge unemployment levels in our economy. But for the 745,000 jobs, we need to interrogate it further and the minister needs to come out much and prove to all of us that indeed these jobs have been created.”

To highlight how the figures could possibly be skewed, Mr. Kareweh remarked that, “even within the crop sub-sector, it is only five crops that were targeted and only five crops with 200,000 farmers could generate 745,000 jobs for us?”

Per the government’s trajectory, he said the crop sector alone could generate 2 million jobs and “within two years, there will virtually be no unemployment in this country and that doesn’t appear to be so.”

Aside from this, Mr. Kareweh said the jobs created needed to be sustainable.

“If you give jobs to someone for only a short period, two days or five days, that is not the type of job we are talking about and no one can live on a five-day job that has been given to them… we need to actually move beyond just putting the figures out there and also talk about jobs people can live on.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Prove 745,000 jobs claim – GAWU to Agric Ministry appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Addressing a news conference in Accra, Dr. Afriyie Akoto described these jobs as “unofficial jobs” saying they were not subject to taxation, among other things.

[contextly_sidebar id=”huFHP809LVQzdO5QrcwD82o3GMsdOMTg”]The Planting for Food and Jobs programme was rolled out in all 216 districts across the country and involves the supply of farm resources such seedlings to participating farmers.

The programme was envisioned to absorb unemployed youth in rural areas, with the government initially targetting the creation of 750,000 jobs in its first phase.

But the Minister noted that there were limits to the extent the government could actually measure the employment gains.

The figures were based on the number of additional inputs as well as improved seeds and fertilizers supplied to participating farmers in 2017.

“… the Planting for Food and Jobs campaign has absorbed this [rural] labour to the extent that we targeted 750,000 rural labour and we were able to generate 745,000 thousand jobs and these jobs are unofficial jobs. They are not pensionable, they are not tax deductible so you cannot actually measure it like those in the formal sector where you re-registered, you are paid a wage, you have to pay tax and so on and therefore, it is very easy to monitor.”

Dr. Afriyie Akoto explained further that “it is the amount of work which is developed in the area which can only absorb this rural labour, therefore, you cannot have direct primary sources of actually counting the numbers but the way the cultivation is done, the amount of inputs that are distributed and that are supplied by farmers, you can come to a very accurate calculation about what it is that you have generated and how many men and women have been absorbed by your efforts.”

On the formal side, the government, in its budget statement from 2018, indicated that over 3,000 were employed comprising 2,160 university graduates and 1,070 youth to register and provide extension services to farmers across the country.

Other milestones under Planting for Food & Jobs

• The Distribution of about 80,000 bags of cereal and legume seeds,  36,000 sachets of vegetable seeds and about 2,000,000 bags of fertilizer
• Recruitment of 822 agricultural extension personnel
• Establishment of a task-force to assess status of warehouses and storage facilities nationwide for rehabilitation
• Creation of market opportunities for farmers by linking them with institutional buyers such as School Feeding Programme and Prisons Service.
• Electronic registration of over 34, 000 farmers out of more than 200,000 manually registered

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post 745,000 ‘unofficial jobs’ created under Planting for Food & Jobs – Minister appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, this will ensure that there is ready market in a bid to boost the viability of the programme.

[contextly_sidebar id=”vZqqrl0uTnssZzYLAHbsOjhSoniwMvne”]Responding to questions on the linkage between the programme and the market, George Oduro indicated that, the over 1000 aggregators had been registered to facilitate the purchase of farm produce under the programme.

“The Planting for Food and Jobs initiative which was launched in the Brong Ahafo Region in April 2017, has seen automatic pillars, improve seeds production and promotion, increase fertilizer usage and promotion for increased productivity, promoting and strengthening market linkage and improved extension service. The sustainability of this initiative is very much dependent on providing ready market for farmers under this programme. To motivate farmers to sign on to this initiative, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Food and Buffer stock company has put measures in place to purchase harvested farm produce under the PFP initiative. The Ministry has so far registered 1,033 aggregators and given them license through the National Buffer Stock company to purchase the produce from the local farmers under the planting for food and jobs for the 2017, 2018 crop season.”

The Planting for Food and Jobs programme is one of government’s flagship programes aimed at improving agricultural production in the country.

The programme is expected to be rolled out in all 216 districts of the country, and will involve the supply of farm resources such as high yielding and improved seedlings to participating farmers.

The farmers will also get agro chemicals such as fertilizer at reduced prices.

The government said the programme will create some 750,000 jobs, and would motivate farmers to grow staple foods such as maize, millet, and beans.

Before the personnel were deployed to provide extension services on September 1 2017, the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana had cast doubt on their ability to do a good job, stating that the use of extension services as part of the programme would make the programme unsuccessful.

The Programme Officer for the Association, Charles Kwowe Nyaaba, in a Citi News interview said,“The approach of recruiting extension service personnel to help in the programme is wrong. If you go to the Ministry of Agriculture at the district level, you have the extension officers there who are not able to visit farming communities because of lack of logistics. You leave all these people hanging there and you say you are bringing National Service personnel to train them to go and train the farmers. At the end of the day, if you don’t take care, they would rather go and be learning from the farmers and that is not going to give us the impact that we are looking for.”

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By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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He said such a move would help the government to realise its goals for the development of the agricultural sector.

Speaking at the 33rd National Farmers’ Day celebration in Kumasi on Friday, Dr Afriyie Akoto said the Agric sector has witnessed a tremendous success in 2017 as compared to year 2016 as a result of President Akufo-Addo’s decision to prioritise the sector.

He said he has already made a similar appeal at the National House of Chiefs and in Parliament as well.

According to the Minister, the lifting of the ban on vegetable exports from Ghana to the European Union (EU) market and the 4.8 per cent growth in the sector as compared to 2016’s 3.6 per cent was part of the success story this year.

Dr Afriyie Akoto said a number of interventions such as supply of fertilisers to farmers at subsidized prices, provision of ready market for farm produce and improvement in infrastructure among others were part of the success story.

Planting for food and jobs

The Agric Minister said the planting for food and jobs programme will target 5,000 farmers in 2018 instead of the 2000 farmers in 2017.

Adding, he said the ministry will support cassava and groundnut production aside the five other crops which are already receiving support under the programme.

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Source: Graphic.com.gh

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The Minister of Finance , Ken Ofori-Atta, who made this known whiles presenting the 2018 Budget and Policy statement in Parliament today , [Wednesday], indicated that a total of 2,160 university graduates and 1,070 youth were employed under the programme, to register and provide extension services to farmers across the country.

According to the Minister, “121, 000 MT of subsidized fertilizers and 4, 454.98 MT of subsidized seeds of cereal, legumes and vegetables have been distributed to beneficiary farmers.”

“The programme also registered suppliers to distribute farm produce to public institutions including the School Feeding Programme, the Free Senior High School Programme, Prisons, Defence and Police, among others to ensure availability of quality food in a timely manner in these institutions,” the Minister added.

Boosting Planting for Food and Jobs

Planting for Food and Jobs, which is expected to to be rolled out in all 216 districts across the country, involves the supply of farm resources such seedlings to participating farmers, and its first phase targeted the creation of more than 750,000 jobs.

Mr. Ofori Atta noted that, investments under the Planting for Food and Jobs will be scaled up.

But the government wants APA to take numerous steps further, as duties on agriculture processing equipment are expected to be abolished along with support granted to agribusiness start-ups.

Minimizing the risk of agriculture financing will also be a target of the government, through agriculture financing and crop insurance schemes.

Funds from the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP), could possibly be diverted to “increase the pace of agriculture mechanization,” according to the Finance Minister.

Major milestones achieved under Planting for Food & Jobs

The Minister also outlined what he termed as “major milestones achieved nationwide” under the programme. These include :

• The Distribution of about 80,000 bags of cereal and legume seeds,  36,000 sachets of vegetable seeds and about 2,000,000 bags of fertilizer

• Recruitment of 822 agricultural extension personnel

• Establishment of a task-force to assess status of warehouses and storage facilities nationwide for rehabilitation

• Creation of market opportunities for farmers by linking them with institutional buyers such as School Feeding Programme and Prisons Service.

• Electronic registration of over 34, 000 farmers out of more than 200,000 manually registered

The Planting for Food and Jobs programme is one of the government’s flagship programs aimed at improving agricultural production in the country.

The government said the program will create some 750,000 jobs and would motivate farmers to grow staple foods such as maize, millet, and beans.

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah

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