Agric Minister: Alleged shortage of fertiliser in Volta is sheer propaganda

The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has refuted claims of a widespread shortage of crop fertiliser in the Volta Region.

The Volta Region branch of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Monday published a press release during the minister’s local tour, alleging widespread shortage of the essential agricultural inputs, saying it had caused price increases and imposed constraints on crop production.

The minister, meeting heads of the regional agricultural directorate a few hours after the press release was published, said the fertilisers had only been restricted to vetted retailers in 26 border districts of Ghana, six of which are in Volta.

He said fertiliser is available, and that data attests to increased yield in the Volta Region. As such, the cries by the opposition party pass only for doomsaying, he declared, and merely convey the torment of smuggling syndicates affected by the restricted trade in border districts.

Flourishing system

Dr Afriyie Akoto said he had witnessed a flourishing agricultural system in the Volta Region which shows no sign of failure.

“What we saw yesterday is really what I will call progress in agriculture. From the very cutting edge of science,” the minister said, referring to a Dutch plant propagation laboratory and a mega potato exporter which, he argued, were his “biggest impact” in the region.

“Apart from that, my general observation in the countryside shows that there has been a very successful major season harvest and you can see that the minor season is emerging,” the minister said.

“The rains have been good and we are hoping for a good harvest in the Volta Region in the minor season, [but] the doomsayers want to give the expression that there is going to be a shortage.

“There is no way that Volta Region, with its performance, can have a shortage … It wouldn’t happen,” he said.

However, the minister stressed that “farmers in the Volta Region responded slowly to the Planting for Food and Jobs programme in the first three years”. After that, input consumption rose alongside increasing acceptance of the policy and its prospects.

Who sets the price?

He added that fertiliser production across the world had taken a hit from the coronavirus pandemic, and that food shortage scares are to be expected.

“We don’t produce fertiliser. The places that produce fertiliser in Europe and America have been badly hit by the COVID and the lockdowns. In England, Yara, which is one of the biggest fertiliser companies in the world, is shutting down factories. In Europe, the others are shutting down factories.

“So we are expecting that there will be a shortage of fertiliser. And of course that means that fertiliser prices are going up and up, which will mean that farmers will get less fertilisers applied on their fields. They are even talking about a shortage of food in Europe.

“So we, as price-takers, are not immune to that. If they, the producers in the countries where these fertilisers are produced, are struggling to get enough supplies at very high prices … We are just price-takers and, obviously, we cannot cocoon ourselves from that. And that one, everybody should understand,” Dr Afriyie Akoto said.

He advised farmers benefiting from the inputs programme to consider weaning themselves off government subsidies, which have become a lifeline to criminal entities.

“Don’t forget this subsidy is not there for ever. It is only for a very small period. The government of Akufo-Addo is taking away from Ghanaian taxpayers nearly GHC1 billion to give as subsidy for the fertilisers and the seeds in 2020. Otherwise, that GHC950 million should have been paid by the farmer.

“And we know that, to a point, the farmers cannot afford to buy at that time. But if you are applying this and you are getting three, four times more production, it means your income has gone up three, four more times. And why is it that you can’t go on to the open market to buy?

“It’s about time we thought seriously about the subsidy because, at the end of the day, there is a lot of smuggling which goes on in this country. We cannot afford to take the taxpayer’s money to subsidise a product, then very criminal elements will smuggle it across the border so that the farmer does not get the full benefit. It is totally wrong.”

Net exporter of food

Dr Afriyie Akoto added, “No government has presided over that kind of arrangement. This is why we excluded some of these districts from the distribution of fertiliser for two years,” Dr Afriyie said.

He called for farmers to appreciate the government’s efforts and successes with the programme, saying it shot Ghana from being a major importer to a major exporter of food.

“We have to acknowledge that this government has transformed the lives of many, many farmers in the Volta Region and throughout the country. It has even become a net exporter of food, and that, nobody can take away.

“We used to import hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of maize into this country until [the NPP government] came to power in 2017. Now we export food out of this country. We supply the whole of West Africa with food.

“How is this possible? It is because of the success of Planting for Food and Jobs. It’s as simple as that,” Dr Afriyie said.

The Planting for Food and Jobs programme has provided tens of thousands of metric tonnes of seeds and fertilisers, benefiting over 160,000 farmers in the Volta Region.

Seth Osei Akoto, the director of crops with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, said the region is home to only 83 distributors of fertiliser. He called for more entrepreneurs to consider going into the business.

He also reported that supplying fertiliser on credit is waning in the region because of slow remittances, with suppliers readily providing goods upon payment of cash.

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