Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture
OWUSU Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture, has called for a united front in tackling the looming threats of food insecurity in the Sahel and West Afri
He urged various governments on the continent to have a holistic and coordinated approach to generating the required production and productivity transformations in the sub-region.
The Minister also appealed to governments, to provide the required infrastructural and essential services in the agricultural and rural sectors of their countries.
He made the call Wednesday in Accra during the opening ceremony of the Regional Consultation on food and nutrition in the Sahel and West Africa.
The objective of the regional consultative meeting was to take stock of the food and nutrition situation and propose appropriate responses and interventions – to cope with the risks of food insecurity in the sub-region.
According to the minister, the persistent food crisis in the sub-region, called for effective regional cooperation – to combat such emergencies.
He stated that another area of importance for governments in the Sahel and West Africa sub-Region was the need to build strong trade relationships among our countries.
To address challenges in the inter-trade arrangements, he explained, there was the need for regional bodies to develop national and regional action plans that will be implemented in a coordinated manner.
“The links between national and regional efforts must be coordinated to achieve the optimum and desired results, according to the minister.
Challenges
He enumerated a few of the challenges as low irrigation development and management, low levels of technological development and dissemination, poor and inadequate infrastructure, low productivity levels (crops and livestock), weak market access, improper natural resource management.
The challenges, he said, were further compounded by erratic weather patterns as a result of the global climate change, which is having adverse effect on agricultural development, both directly and indirectly.
“In 2017, the first year of the campaign, over 202,000 farmers participated. Last year, about 677,000 farmers benefitted and this year our target is 1,000,000 farmers.”
“As a result of the campaign, cereals and legumes, the key crops being promoted under the campaign have also increased tremendously. Cereal production for instance increased from 2,950,941 metric tonnes in 2017 to 3,216,646 metric tonnes in 2018 representing a 9.0 percentage rise,” he explained.
BY Melvin Tarlue