Available statistics indicate that, Ghana last year, imported 1.9 billion dollars’ worthof food products, with imports of agricultural and related products. This amount which keeps increasing every year, is unsustainable.
Perhaps, this is what informed president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to launch the Planting for Food and Jobs programme in 2017.
The ultimate goal of the programme was to ensure that Ghanaians eat only what they produce and in the process save scarce foreign reserve from depletion.
The jury is out on whether we have achieved self-sufficiency in food production or not, despite the amount of money spent in ensuring that Ghana ceases to be a net importer of food to a net exporter of food to not only Africa, but the rest of the world.
There was a time when China could not feed itself without importing food. This was also the time its population was growing astronomically and it had to embrace the one-child policy to halt the growth even as it had serious challenges feeding its population.
Today China, has achieved self-sufficiency, despite its population of 1.6 billion people.
Example of another country with huge population, but has achieved self-sufficient in food production is India. Stories were told of how people used to die of hunger on the streets of India in the ‘60s, but that is no longer the case.
Ghana, has been described as an agricultural nation, with agric said to be the backbone of the economy. Some strides were made in the first republic to ensure self-sufficiency, but since the overthrow of our first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the only time another attempt was made to harness the abundant arable lands we have was during the time of Kutu Acheampong, when he introduced operation feed yourself.
Since then not much has been achieved, except the lip service that has been paid by successive governments.
Self-sufficiency in food production is key to national development and stability, which explains why countries including the advanced ones continue to provide subsidy for their farmers.
This newspaper is making a clarion call on Ghanaians to eat Ghanaian grown food as they are tasty, nutritious and healthy.
