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Farmers use old methods to store produce — Report

 

Farmers are still using old methods of storing produce despite the introduction of improved storage facilities by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to reduce post-harvest losses.

According to the 2013 Auditor General’s Report on MoFA’s Support to Farmers to increase Food Security, “the farmers were not using these storage facilities because they said the facilities were expensive to construct”. 

“MoFA’s development partners and NGOs had constructed storage facilities in the communities for farmers who could not afford their own storage facilities, but these were few in number.

“Farmers were still using their old methods of storing produce, which resulted in high post-harvest losses,” it said.

Recommendation

The report said for farmers to use the improved storage facilities, MoFA should identify districts where farmers were not using appropriate storage facilities and introduce them to the appropriate storage technology.

In addition, the ministry should re-emphasise the benefit farmers would derive from using the improved storage facilities during their training sessions, adding that it should also share the success stories of farmers in Kpando and Hohoe who had adopted the improved storage facilities and provide incentives for private businesses and NGOs to build more storage facilities in the districts.

MoFA’s response

According to the report, MoFA had accepted the recommendations.

Purpose of audit

The purpose of the audit was to determine whether MoFA’s implementation of food security strategies in the Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP) II had resulted in six per cent growth rate per annum in the prioritised food crops and whether new storage technologies introduced had reduced post-harvest losses. 

The audit covered the period 2007 to 2011. 

To ensure that farmers produced more food crops to make food available all-year round, the ministry formulated and implemented the FASDEP I to modernise the agricultural sector from 2002 to 2006. 

MoFA, however, revised FASDEP I to reflect the lessons learnt and responded to the changing needs of the sector. FASDEP II was formulated with the objective to ensure food security from 2007 to 2015. 

The MoFA, in FASDEP II, set a target of six per cent. 

Food security strategies

The Auditor General’s Report further said MoFA implemented food security strategies in FASDEP II to increase production of the five prioritised food crops (rice, maize, cassava, yam and cowpea) to achieve its annual growth rate of six per cent, adding that “from 2007 to 2010, the ministry was able to go above the six per cent target but reduced to four per cent in 2011”. 

It said although the ministry was able to achieve above the target, production decreased every year from 27 per cent in 2007 to nine per cent in 2010, dipping further to four per cent in 2011. 

Production increases

The report said it analysed production figures from MoFA’s annual reports and the Ghana Statistical Service and found that production of the five prioritised food crops increased from 16,118 million metric tonnes (MT) in 2007 to 22,921 million metric tonnes in 2011. 

The increase was attributed to the introduction of block farm, fertilizer subsidy and roots and tubers improvement marketing programmes and mechanised services which the ministry introduced from 2007. 

Production of the five food crops from 2001 to 2006 increased in absolute terms from 12.7 million metric tonnes to 22.9 million metric tonnes in 2011.

 

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