Exertion by the Government to support the agricultural industry in the country have not yielded the ideal outcomes since commercial banks have neglected to assume their normal parts by giving out significant loans to Farmers.
The Minister of Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, noted although the Government was giving its all to support food creation by subsidizing the price of agricultural inputs, for example, agro chemicals , the banks had neglected to give an adequate number of credits to supplement that work.
That, as per the Minister , had made the costs of staples and other farming produce high on the market.
As a results , the Government would before long get Parliament to come up with regulation to constrain commercial banks in the country to allot 20% of their credit portfolio to farmers , he reiterated .
Dr Akoto gave disclosed this when he visited some areas in the Eastern Region to communicate with farmers to figure out the difficulties they went through and whether there had been lack of staples in those areas.
The minister was accompanied by his deputy , Yaw Frimpong Addo, high officials of the ministry and regional and district directors of Agriculture on the visit.
The appointment visited, among different offices, the Legacy Seed Processing Company at Otareso, close to Koforidua, where seeds are put away, handled and treated; the Idros Farms at Kwame Duodu; the Pinora Zonal Enterprise close to Adeiso, which produces natural product juice for send out just, and TQ Farms, Akim Krodua close to Asamankese, makers of cereals, cassava and coconut.
They likewise visited Sahmen Farms at Mepom close to Asamankese, which produces half and half coconut seedlings, as well as coconut leafy foods items.
Regulation
Dr Akoto said to determine the issue of financial difficulties farmers faced , regulation was being looked to urge commercial banks to give out no less than 20% of their advance portfolio to ranchers
That, he said, would support food creation and simultaneously make the costs of food reasonable to Ghanaians.
The Minister , who talked energetically about the issue, stressed that in India, for example, throughout recent years, it had been obligatory for banks to designate a specific measure of their loaning cash to farmers to help agriculture in that country.
“What we want to do as a nation is force business banks, through regulation, to dispense assets towards supporting farmers and agriculture in general,” he noted .
The minister explained if that was not carried out , agriculture, which is the foundation of the Ghanaian economy, would keep on face difficulties , adding that the ministry was not a financial institution but rather a policy making one.
Dr Akoto, who showed that there was no shortage of farm produce in the country, in any case, brought up that the costs of food things had gone up .
He blamed the high cost of food items to the high cost of data sources, for example, chemicals , poultry feed and the rising cost of fuel which had additionally impacted the transportation of food items from the farm door to the market places.
He clarified that the variables that had driven for the increase in the costs of food items were beyond the control of the government, which was giving a valiant effort to guarantee that the costs would be reasonable to the conventional Ghanaian.
“This present circumstance can be turned around in the event that the banks begin giving farmers credits in light of the fact that the majority of the farmers , particularly poultry farmers who regularly produce birds up to 150,000, have now reduced the number definitely due to absence of funds ,” the minister said.
With respect to the worldwide deficiency of manure, the minister said Ghanaian farmers had now turned to the use of natural compost, which had tended to such a circumstance.
At the Idros Farms, the proprietor, Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim, who was the Best National Crop Farmer in 2021, told the journalists that his outfit was setting up a food handling processing plant for the area, in accordance with the governments One-District, One-Factory drive, making sense of that he had huge land for that reason.
Partners on seeds
Earlier , a meeting with regional and district rural chiefs, agric extension officials, seed cultivators and information seed vendors was held at the Eastern Regional Coordinating Council, where a presentation was done by the Regional Director of Agriculture, Henry Crentsil.
Mr Crentsil revealed that there had been a lift in food creation this year, adding that the government’s PFJ had contributed colossally towards overcoming adversity this year.