Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Ghana's Minister of Food and Agriculture, believes the rains this year have been very exceptional and might bring extremely positive results for the country's crop production sector.
During his eight-day tour of the five forest regions, he observed that the good rains this year had encouraged farmers to plant more, and the plants appeared to be healthier.
He feels that this will help increase harvest throughout the harvest season.
"The rains have been plentiful." This year's rains have been exceptional. To the point where you could see the plants are extremely healthy and are about ready to be harvested all along the way, on your left and right, wherever you walked, that is, maize and other tree crops.
"And wherever we visited in the five areas, they all agreed that the rains this year, in May, had been exceptional." As a result, many farmers have been encouraged to sow," he remarked.
"Because rainfall in the main season are usually quite irregular due to climate change, farmers have learned over the years to plant during the minor season, which is August September rather than March April May." However, because the rains have been continuous and good this year, a lot of farmers are out there working really hard," he continued.
On JoyNews' PM Express, the Minister spoke on the government's agriculture plans in the wake of rising food prices.
Critics of the government's Planting for Food and Jobs strategy, he claims, are being unreasonable when they blame recent food price increases on the policy's claimed failure.
He argues that the policy is prospering and producing incredible outcomes, precisely as the President envisioned when he began it.
Such outcomes, he claims, can be observed in the Agriculture sector's 8.4 percent growth last year, despite the Covid-19 epidemic.
He said that the country's food inflation is caused by foreign influences impacting the country's agriculture business.
"I've recently returned from an 8-day trip across five woodland zones; there's a lot of food in the system." We witnessed something like 25,000metric tonnes of corn from last year's harvest piled there waiting for customers in the enclave of Bono East, Techiman reaching all the way to Ejura that enclave. So, in my opinion, if you claim that high food prices indicate that the policy has failed, you are not being realistic," he added.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, on the other hand, has given the government's Planting for Food and Jobs initiative a perfect grade.
According to him, the program's influence on Ghana's agriculture sector has been incredible, and he is optimistic that the policy will continue to produce incredible outcomes in the future years.
"Its influence is transforming people's mindset and attitude toward agriculture," he explained. It's impossible to put a price on it. To witness the quantity of young, professional individuals who are now coming into the field, you'll have to go to the field."