Gov’t fails to fund Agric census

Ghana’s agriculture sector has not received the needed attention since the current administration came to power despite the fact that the sector employs about 60 percent of Ghanaians.

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), BUSINESS GUIDE has learnt, is supposed to carry out an agricultural census this year to help garner reliable data on the country’s agriculture sector for better planning but government appears not to be interested in the exercise because of the amount of money it must release for the exercise to begin.

Sources at the Ghana Statistical Service have indicated that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Office in Ghana has since 2014 pledged to provide technical support in this regard but to date the over GH¢30 million from government to kick-start the exercise has been disbursed, a situation that can lead to substantiated statistics.

Dutch Disease setting in?

Since the production of oil in commercial quantities in 2012, government has mainly focused its attention on the oil and gas sector and the services sector, totally neglecting the development of the agriculture sector.

Government, it would be recalled, cut its expenditure on the agricultural sector by GHC40 million, stalling the growth of the sector to 0.04 percent in 2015 despite a targeted growth of 3.6 percent growth.

Its budgeted expenditure on the agricultural sector for last year was GHC395.19 million while for this year, GHC355.14 million has been budgeted, representing a 10.1 percent decrease.

The growth of the economy was estimated to grow at about 5.4 percent this year, but has had to be slashed to 4.1 percent recently.

Last year, the sector’s share of GDP stood at 21.5 percent, but that will decline to 19 percent this year.

Growth projection

The Ghana Statistical Service estimates that the sector will grow at an average of 3.3 percent between 2016 and 18.

Services and industry look to narrow agriculture’s contribution to GDP.

From the 2016 budget statement, it emerged that government’s spending on the sector has been largely sporadic.

The Finance Minister Seth Terkper revealed that only GHC91.54 million out of the GHC395.19 million had been spent.

Out of the spent amount, GHC82.57 million, representing 90.21 percent, was spent on poverty-focused expenditure such as the Fertiliser Subsidy programme and the establishment of agricultural mechanisation service centres, among others, to boost agricultural production.

Even with the government fertiliser subsidy programme, many fertiliser suppliers have boycotted it, citing non-payment for fertiliser previously supplied.

High food prices

The price of foodstuffs and other staples keep escalating, especially cassava and plantain.

The cost of preparing ‘fufu’ is now expensive because of the scarcity of cassava.

The share of Ghana’s agricultural sector towards the country’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP), which in 1991 was about 65 percent, reduced by almost 50 percent down to 23 percent in 2012, a World Bank report said.