The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) will from today, Friday November 11, 2022, start selling food stuff at it premises in Accra.
The move, which is a pilot project under the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), is meant to mitigate the impact of rising food prices on real incomes of civil and local government workers.
The Ministry in a statement dated November 10, 2022, said the initiative is also part of measures to bring attention to the availability and affordability of food products in the country.
The initiative comes as a part of measures to control rise in prices of food commodities in the country.
Meanwhile, the President of the Ghana Agricultural Chamber of Commerce (GACC), Philip Abayori says the decision by the Agric Ministry to hold and sell foodstuffs at designated offices for consumers at cheaper prices is not sustainable.
He says the bone of contention has to do with the cost of credit and transportation driven by the high cost of fuel.
According to Mr Abayori, the sector Ministry should work on its terms as agricultural fuel subsidy to help reduce high prices of food and retail products on the market.
Mr. Abayori challenged government to help women and queen mothers gain access to credit facilities.
” What the Ministry should have done ideally is to have sat down to work out what we call a subsidy on agricultural fuel which is everywhere around the world.
And this would have been an opportunity for the Minister to demand that we should have agricultural fuel subsidised so that if we can get the fuel subsidised by 50per cent for the farmers and for the haulage which would bring food, then what will happen is that the price of food in the market across board in the whole country will be reduced,” He said.
According to Mr Abayori, if care is not taken the decision by the sector Ministry, it might result in post-harvest losses.
” If you haul those products and bring them to the Ministry, do you know the post-harvest losses that you are going to have with this weather? We need to look at this dispassionately and ensure that we are doing something properly,” Mr. Abayori added.
