Yam, cocoyam to be added to list of items at PFJ market - Agric Ministry

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) after piloting the sale of some selected food items namely; plantain and rice to help cushion Ghanaians in the face of the escalating cost of food has added two new items.

The new additions are cocoyam and yam.

The Ministry after successfully making available some bunch of the plantain which were sold for GHS10, GHS15 and GHS25 respectively depending on the size on Friday, November 11, 2022, to some Civil and Local Government staff at the forecourt of the Ministry is adding up some more items.

The Public Relations Officer of the Ministry, Bagbara Tanko told Emmanuel Quarshie, the host of the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5 FM on Monday, November 14, 2022, that the minister was motivated to roll out the pilot market project stemming from his experience during his tour of the Western North Region.

According to him, during the minister’s tour of the region, when the regional director of MoFA was giving his report, he mentioned that because of the Planting for Food and Jobs in the region, a bunch of plantain was sold for GHS5 only.

He added that, already, MoFA directors in the Central Region have also kick started what they call the farmer’s market which is similar to what is happening in Accra.

This, he said, got the minister motivated and at the same time wondering why the same food items are sold at high cost in the urban areas.

He explained that it was the glut in the Western North that pushed the minister’s ideas to roll out the pilot market at the ministry’s forecourt and the Efua Sutherland Park in Accra.

He said when the minister continued with his tour of the Oti Region, it was also noted that one hundred tubers of yam were sold for GHS600.00.

He said these revelations got the minister to decide to cart some of these food items to the urban areas and make them available to the staff of the Civil and Local Government Service.

He disclosed that quite often it is the barriers along the roads from the farm gate that push the cost of food in the urban areas.

For his part, Mr Edwin Kweku Andoh Baffour, Communications Director of Food Sovereignty Ghana, commended the Ministry for making some of these food items available to the suffering masses.

"The ministry is solving a problem," he said but wondered how sustainable the exercise will be going forward.

He chastised the government for failing to create the needed infrastructure across the regions for people to freely move items to the urban areas.

He said the lack of infrastructure has accounted for the high cost of food in the urban areas.

He explained that some of the road infrastructures at the farm gate are the cause of the high cost of food in the urban areas.