Agric ministry rolls out PFJ2.0 in SHSs
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has rolled out a comprehensive programme to assist senior high schools that are interested in farming.
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Interested schools will benefit from a partial grant, including supplies of inputs such as improved seeds and fertiliser
“We want to give every senior high school in Ghana that is willing to do school farming the opportunity; the ministry now stands ready to support them, especially those in the southern and middle belt where the planting season is about starting.
“We are now willing to support them to engage in massive school farming.
With that, the school will now be able to feed on the grains, legumes and cereals that they have cropped, and thereby leaving what our general farmers have planted for the market for the rest of the population,” the sector Minister, Dr Bryan Acheampong, announced at a media briefing in Accra last Monday.
He was briefing the media on the official rollout of the implementation of the Phase Two of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ2.0) programme launched in August last year.
Dr Acheampong expressed the belief that such a move would reduce the pressure on food and stabilise food prices generally.
How to enrol
The minister said any school that was interested could go onto a mobile and web application platform, the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Platform (GhAAP), where there was an opportunity to enrol.
“It is the school that must fill the form, and in doing so, the head of the school must enter his or her full name and staff number, and the number and name must match with what is on file with the Accountant General’s Department,” Dr Acheampong explained.
He added that the heads of schools could appoint coordinators and submit such names on the form, “and immediately they submit the names, those documents go straight to the district agric office”.
The office would in turn, get in touch with the school to begin the process.
Dr Acheampong said the farming season was around the corner for the southern sector, “and the time to get into agriculture is now”.
Model
The minister explained that the PFJ2.0 was designed to trace the entire agriculture value chain to ensure that all the actors “have their hands on deck” to deal with the challenges identified in the initial implementation of the PFJ.
He said the major shift from the initial PFJ was moving away from the subsidy system to an input credit programme, where the farmer was given 15 per cent subsidy on the input.
“In the subsidy programme, for example, if the total input requirement at the end of the season is GH¢1,000 that the farmer needs for seeds and fertiliser, he is required to produce GH¢850 to buy the seeds and the fertiliser because government has given a subsidy of 15 per cent,” the minister explained.
He said since the beneficiaries were peasant farmers, securing GH¢850 could be difficult for them, as such, most of such farmers limited themselves to only what they could afford.
Input credit
“So, what we intend to do with the input credit system is to provide the farmer with input credit system worth the GH¢1,000, and since it was a credit system, the farmer could decide to expand his or her farm,” he explained.
Dr Acheampong explained that at the end of the farming season, the farmers would be required to pay back the input given to them not in cash, but in the form of the farm produce.
He explained that the produce from the farmers would then be given to either the National Buffer Stock Company or any of the off-taker public institutions.
The minister explained that the current model was in the best interest of the farmer because borrowing the amount used on the farm from a bank would require the farmer to pay an interest of about 50 per cent on the amount.
“This interest element is no longer the burden of the farmer,” Dr Acheampong said, stressing that with the input subsidy and the input credit system, the farmer could make some significant savings.
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